ARTIST TALKS
Here at LA Tactile Lab we offer a dynamic set of artist lectures. These talks are offered in person at our LAB in DTLA, some will be offered virtually and hybrid. Please check to see the format. Every lecture is a suggested donation $10 to raise funds for those impacted by the recent fires and to help support artists.
June 13th 4:30pm
Sarah Ippolito
Artist lecture with Sarah Ippolito Saturday June 13th at 4:30pm
Sarah Ippolito is a Los Angeles based artist working in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Informed by time spent underwater as a scuba diver, her work explores ocean biodiversity, the sensory world of nonhuman organisms, and our shared connection to water. Through vibrant color, evocative texture, and magnified scale, her biomorphic sculptures invite contemplation of the vast liquid realm that defines our planet. Ippolito received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston (2010) and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012). Ippolito has presented solo exhibitions at Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Not There Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023); the A+D Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2019); and Adjunct Positions, Los Angeles, CA (2014). Recent group exhibitions include Massey Klein Gallery, New York, NY (2024); Forest Lawn Museum, Glendale, CA (2023); La Loma Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2023); the Future Perfect, Los Angeles, CA (2019); the Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA (2014). She is the recipient of the Henrik Vibskov P:I:G Award (2023); and the A+D Museum Alley Fellowship (2019).
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Artist lecture with Alicia Piller Saturday July 18th at 4pm
Alicia Piller is a Los Angeles–based mixed media artist whose practice explores materiality, memory, and the construction of history. Raised in Chicago, she earned her BFA in Painting and Anthropology from Rutgers University in 2004, grounding her work
in both visual language and the study of human systems. Piller spent a decade in New York City working in the fashion industry, followed by three and a half years in Santa Fe, New Mexico- experiences that shaped her distinct sculptural voice and deep engagement with material transformation. She received her MFA in Sculpture and Installation from CalArts in 2019. Her work constructs what she describes as a material cosmology—where history, identity, and erasure orbit one another across layered systems of meaning. Drawing on cellular biology as a metaphor for trauma, repair, and continuity, she merges organic, industrial, and digital materials to create immersive, large-scale forms that examine
how memory persists within contemporary cultural and political landscapes. Incorporating natural materials, recycled fabrics from the fast fashion industry, recycled 3D-printed components, and found objects, her sculptures function as evolving
constellations—assembling fragments of labor, consumption, ancestry, and time into dynamic, interconnected fields. Piller’s work is held in the permanent collections of the California African American Museum, the Hammer Museum, and Glendale Community College, as well as in notable private collections including Pam Royalle, Janine Barrois, Dr. Joy Simmons, and artist Lauren Bon. She has been featured in The New York Times (“5 Artists to Watch at the California Biennial,” 2022) and the Los Angeles Times, including the recent feature “Trash Is Treasure for This Jewelry Maker and Sculptor” (Dec. 30, 2025), and is currently developing a temporary public sculpture for Kings Road Park in West Hollywood (2026).
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Alicia Piller
July 18th 4pm
Mike Chattem
September 5th 4pm
Artist lecture with Mike Chattem Saturday September 5th at 4pm
I make paintings that freely alternate between the boundaries of wall work and sculpture. Working with a combo of industrial materials and traditional media, I build chunky composites of maquette style landscapes and dimensional painting gestures. The work explores the phenomenological potential of painting through hyper tactility and sometimes kinetic elements.
Having lived in the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast, I feel a broad sentiment to the American condition. My practice is sort of like a subversive celebration of a new Americana. Regional tropes, polished consumerism and material exploration are frequent themes; all approached with a playful freedom and humor, regardless of how mundane or terrifying.
Mike Chattem is an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. His recent solo exhibitions include Gattopardo and SPRING/BREAK Art Show, both in Los Angeles. Selected group exhibitions include Moosey in Norwich, UK, Hashimoto in Los Angeles, SADE in Los Angeles, SAP Space in Berlin, Steve Turner in Los Angeles, Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, CA, and SOIL Gallery in Seattle. He holds a BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and has most recently been an artist in residence at Foundation OBRAS in Evoramonte, Portugal. His work is part of the permanent collections at the Aster in Los Angeles and Mindspace, NY, MeowWolf in Los Angeles and has been featured in New American Paintings, ArtsInSquare Magazine and Hyperallergic.
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Past Events
Artist lecture with Dee Clements Wednesday May 20th at 5:30pm - ONLINE
Dee Clements is an artist, educator, and founder of The Weaving Workshop with interests in materials, craft, and ethnography. She holds an MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Fiber and Materials Studies and Sculpture from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Centerfor Craft Teaching Artist Grant. Her work is in the permanent collections of Cranbrook Art Museum, The Anderson Collection at Stanford University, and Yale University Art Gallery. Her work is represented by Mindy Solomon Gallery, Library Street Collective, and Onna House. She grew up in the Mohawk Valley area of New York State, and has lived and worked in Chicago since 1998.
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Dee Clements
May 20th 5:30pm
Lindsay Preston Zappas
April 11th 4pm
Artist lecture with Lindsay Preston Zappas Saturday April 11th at 4pm.
Lindsay Preston Zappas is an artist and writer based in L.A. Her work compresses various mediums—like photography, sculpture, weaving, and performance—using the body as a constant interloper between mediums and methods. Throughout Zappas' work, the human form is intermixed with various objects, patterns, and props, exploring notions of adornment alongside our frenetic need for consumer goods. While welcoming digital tools like Photoshop and on-demand printing, Zappas also embraces the craft tradition of weaving, drawing connections between the ability of the loom to—like digital media—flatten image and material into one compressed plane.
Lindsay Preston Zappas is an L.A.-based artist, writer, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla). She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. She has taught at Cal State Long Beach, Harvey Mudd College, Oregon College of Art & Craft, Fullerton College, and California State University, Northridge. Zappas has recently exhibited at Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, Wilding Cran, Five Car Garage, and Brea Gallery.
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Artist lecture with Trulee Hall Saturday November 22nd at 2pm.
Trulee Hall's creative practice spans video, sculpture, painting, audio composition, and choreographed dance. Hall integrates these mediums into immersive installations. These vignettes offer multiple representations of a non-narrative visual subject, replayed through painting, sculpture, and video amalgams of CGI, claymation, and live action performance.
Hall received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1999 and her MFA from CalArts in 2006. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Rubell Family Collection, the Hammer Museum, Deitch Projects, The Armory Show, Paramount Studios for Frieze Art Fair, Redcat, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), Barrick Museum of Art, Maccarone Los Angeles, Michael Benevento Gallery, and the Billy Wilder Theatre, among numerous other exhibitions and film screenings internationally.
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Trulee Hall
November 22nd 2PM
Erick Medel
October 19th 2PM
Artist lecture with Erick Medel Sunday October 19th at 2pm.
Medel’s medium is fiber – he “paints” with a sewing machine on dark, heavy gauge denim, intuitively selecting color from a wall-sized bank of threads. The deep denim support enhances color by contrast, lending Medel’s compositions a quiet luminosity. Denim also brings to the work its long association with labor and its origins as a sturdy fabric developed to protect the bodies of workers. More personally, denim recalls the protective wear used by the artist’s father in his work as a gardener. Denim provides a strong base for many layers of stitching, which lend depth and shading to the compositions – most apparent here in his portraits of the neighborhood’s animal denizens. This body of work also finds Medel experimenting with abstraction, transforming backgrounds into blocks of solid color that lock together like puzzle pieces. This development grew out of a deepening interest in the history of abstract figuration by artists such as Alice Neel and Noah Davis.
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Artist lecture with Kim Garcia Saturday May 31st 4pm.
Kim Garcia is an artist working in sculpture, drawing, and painting. Her practice centers on oral storytelling to explore the complexities of inheritance, postcolonial identity, and memory. Kim comes from a background in creating collaborative community projects that often employ alternative spaces to explore studio art practices, site-specific collaboration, and museum and exhibition research. She is the founder of The Cold Read, an online critique group and artist collective that engages gestures of care and support through writing and is one of the co-founders of after hours gallery, an art gallery in Los Angeles that hosts two-person exhibitions. Kim has had solo exhibitions at Phase Gallery (2023), Best Practice (2019), and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2017) and has exhibited in group exhibitions at Luis De Jesus, Feia, ICALA, Torrance Art Museum, and Human Resources. Kim is based in Los Angeles and received her BA from UC San Diego and her MFA from UC Irvine.
Register for the talk here.
May 31st 4PM
Kim Garcia
Artist lecture with Hannah Epstein Saturday May 24th 4pm - ONLINE
Hannah Epstein grew up in remote Nova Scotia before going to college in even more remote Newfoundland where she studied folklore and learned how to make hooked rugs. After getting her MFA at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, she added conceptual rigor to her practice and became, as she calls herself, “a feminist folklorist of the internet age.” Her hooked rugs of monsters, internet memes and historically-inspired creatures are both humorous and disconcerting.
Reserve your spot here
May 24th 4PM
Hannah Epstein
May 3rd 4PM
Christy Matson
Artist lecture with Christy Matson Saturday May 3rd 4pm.
Christy Matson is a Los Angeles-based artist specializing in woven, wall-mounted works created with a hand-operated Jacquard loom. Her process integrates watercolor, ink, and collage into digital compositions that guide her weaving, blending precision with improvisation. Matson has had solo exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Cranbrook Art Museum, and the Long Beach Museum of Art, and her work has been in numerous group exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Renwick Gallery. Her works are in several permanent collections including LACMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Milwaukee Musuem of Art and the Mint Museum in North Carolina. Matson has held academic appointments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, California State University Long Beach and Harvey Mud College and is a former board member of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
Register for the talk here.
April 26th 4PM
Thomas Martinez Pilnik
Artist lecture with Thomas Martinez Pilnik Saturday April 26th at 4pm.
Thomas Martinez Pilnik (b. 1993) was raised in London by Brazilian parents. Pilnik then moved to the US and obtained his BA in Studio Art and Cognitive Science from the University of
Virginia, M.Ed in Postsecondary Education from the University of Southern California, and MFA from the University of Connecticut. He is now based in Los Angeles.
Pilnik has exhibited internationally in spaces including Moosey Gallery and Arusha in London, SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York, Zaratan Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon, and Hashimoto Contemporary in Los Angeles, and has created installations and works in collaboration with organizations such as the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health and Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy. He has been an artist-in-residence at Zaratan, McKenzie Gibson Studios in Rhode Island, Stove Works in Tennessee, Art House San Clemente, The Wassaic Project in Upstate New York. Pilnik is also the co-founder of Feia, a new gallery and design studio that celebrates all things imperfect.
Register for the lecture here.
Molly Haynes (b. 1992) is an artist and weaver based in San Pedro, California. Her material-driven works blur the line between humans and the natural world, often appearing both organic and mechanical. Haynes earned her B.F.A. in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design and went on to design for the interior textiles industry, where she gained a deep understanding of fibers and the construction of cloth. After several years, she delved into her personal practice to focus on handmade works that are free of utilitarian constraints. Her work has been exhibited internationally including Egg Collective, New York, NY; Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal, CA; Compound, Long Beach, CA; and la BEAST Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured in magazines including Luxe, W Magazine, and Dovetail Magazine. She has given artist talks at schools and institutions, most recently at Craft in America in Los Angeles. She attended the Open Studio Residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in 2019 and returned in 2024 as teaching faculty.
March 29th 4PM
Molly Haynes
March 22nd 2PM with 4PM gallery walk through
Kayla Mattes
Kayla Mattes (b. 1989, Los Angeles, CA, USA) archives the ephemeral vernacular of digital culture through the interconnected threads of weaving. Her hand woven tapestries embrace the narrative and technological history embedded in the act of materializing thread into the woven grid. Driven by
meme-culture, current events, and the anxiety of our digital lives, her work weaves together narratives that simultaneously act as jokes and social commentary.
Mattes received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and her MFA from University of California Santa Barbara in 2019. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Eli & Edythe Broad Museum (Michigan), Charlie James Gallery, (Los Angeles), Asia Art
Center (Taipei and Beijing), Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Portland, OR), Torrance Art Museum, Richard Heller Gallery (Los Angeles), and Collaborations (Copenhagen). She is one of twenty weavers included in the 2018 book, Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom and her work has
been featured in Artnet, MacGuffin Magazine, New American Paintings, and i-D Magazine. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
Sasha Fishman is a sculptor and researcher based in New York. She is particularly interested in marine biomaterials, toxicology and energy harvesting as points for critical analysis and mechanisms for sculpting. She is a recent MFA Sculpture graduate from Columbia University where she collaborated with labs on salmon, fountains, and carbon capture materials. Sasha is a 2024 Puffins Grant recipient and a current Artist in Residence at Smack Mellon.
Fishman has exhibited her work at Below Grand (New York), Resort (Maryland), Hesse Flatow (New York), Bozomag (Los Angeles), ILY2 (Portland), The Jewish Museum (New York), and The Indian Ceramics Triennale (New Delhi, India). She has participated in residencies at Smack Mellon (New York), Art Ichol (India), Acre (Wisconsin), NAHR (Italy) and the High Desert Observatory (California). Fishman has presented her work and run workshops at Printed Matter (New York), Genspace (New York), Navel (Los Angeles), Carnegie Mellon, UCLA (Los Angeles), UDenver (Colorado), UColorado Boulder (Colorado), Kenyon College (Ohio), MICA (Maryland), Caltech (California), and CSULB (California).
Sasha will teaching an Experimental Bioplastics workshops March 1st prior to her lecture. Sign up for both!
March 1st 4PM
Sasha Fishman
February 22nd 4PM
Minga Opazo
Minga Opazo is a fourth-generation textile crafter who explores the relationship between climate change, contemporary textile production, and Chilean textile history and design. Born in Chile, Minga immigrated to Los Angeles at the age of 16. Opazo recent works, questions the textile industry by creating a series of cultural works that explore the idea of solastalgia, a term which describes the mental or existential distress caused by environmental change and living in an era of excess, constantly consuming and throwing away.In her practice, she is dedicated to research the textile industry further and to create work that exposes, reflects and finds a solution to the current situation of the textile waste industry. She completed her BFA at University of California, Berkeley in 2016 and her MFA at California Institute of the Arts, 2020. Opazo exhibited works across the US and Latino America, including the Museum of Visual art of Santiago, Chile,ACRE gallery in Chicago and the Bunker Art Space part of the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. In Los Angeles, her work has been shown at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Craft contemporary, and Sargent’s daughter gallery.She has been awarded with various residency including Banff art center, ACRE residency and Haystack mountain school of craft, Anderson Ranch Art center, Mass Moca and Bemis Art center. She recently had her work published at Artforum, Lum art magazine and American Science magazine.