In-Conversation with Alexandra Steinacker-Clark & Lisa Corinne Davis

Join us on Tuesday 15th April for an intimate evening at The Mayor Gallery, St James, London, celebrating the recent release of Working in Art: How to Build A Career in the Art World by Alexandra Steinacker-Clark, and the opening of Lisa Corinne Davis' exhibition of recent paintings Tangible Tale.

TALK | 5:00 PM

Ever been told that working in art is a pipe dream? That the art world is too opaque or nepotistic to break into? Alexandra Steinacker-Clark's new book is here to challenge that.

In this 45-minute seated talk, Alexandra will be in conversation drawing on the themes of Working in Art — a guide that demystifies the professional art sector through in-depth interviews with curators, gallerists, conservators, auction house specialists, journalists, and more.

This will be followed by a special focus on artist Lisa Corinne Davis, who offers a rare and honest look at the business of being an artist: What it really means to run a practice, take on public commissions, navigate academia, and build the kind of interconnected, layered professional life her work reflects. Lisa's paintings are about networks, they reference the way things connect, overlap, and build upon one another and the threads that lead to different places.

Please make sure to arrive in good time before the talk commences.

BOOK SIGNING | Following the Talk

Alexandra will be signing copies of Working in Art at a dedicated table. Copies will be available to purchase on the night but you can bring your pre-ordered copy if you have one.

EXHIBITION OPENING | 6:00 - 8.00 PM

Stay to celebrate the opening of Lisa Corinne Davis' exhibition with drinks from 6pm.

Lisa Corinne Davis (Baltimore, USA), a Brooklyn-based abstract painter whose vibrant and intriguing work enigmatically resembles geographical maps, aerial views, circuit boards and coding systems.

For the past 25 years, Davis has drawn on her singular lived experience as a Black woman who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Baltimore while attending a Quaker private school to explore the complex relationship between race, culture, and systems of societal classification as a way of questioning the ingrained human impulse to categorise people.

In her work, marks and patterns in natural, warm hues that allude to the body and organic matter collide with vivid artificial colours and neon, while warped geometric grids reminiscent of genetic sequencing diagrams are layered with organic, rhythmic marks which shift and undulate to disarming and hypnotic effect.

The imagined geographies in Davis’s work are informed in part by the falsified maps that were once produced in the Soviet Union, thereby prompting a broader interrogation of information, power, and belief. In an era defined by constant surveillance, artificial intelligence, and emerging forms of techno-feudalism, her paintings raise urgent questions about truth, trust, and the precarious nature of personal identity.

ABOUT ALEXANDRA STEINACKER-CLARK

Alexandra Steinacker-Clark is an American-Austrian art historian, curator, author, and podcaster living and working in London. She is the founder and host of the All About Art podcast, and the co-director of NXT GEN: AWITA x All About Art, a programme designed to support early career arts professionals. Her specialisations are in contemporary art and its markets, along with accessibility, engagement, and the demystification of the professional art sector. Alexandra is a TEDx speaker, having presented a talk on 'Can Consuming Art Increase Empathy' in 2023, and the author of Working in Art: How to Build A Career in the Art World (Octopus, 2026).

ABOUT LISA CORINNE DAVIS

Davis received her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MFA from Hunter College. Her paintings have been exhibited across the United States and in Europe and are held in many prestigious private and public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and four Artist Fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2017, she was inducted as a National Academician at the National Academy Museum & School. A renowned professor, Davis has taught at the Yale University School of Art and currently serves as Professor of Art at Hunter College. She has lectured widely on her work and other art related subjects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, the National Academy of Design, and the National Arts Education Association, to name a few. Her essays on art and culture have been published in the Brooklyn Rail, Art Critical and Art Forum magazines. Davis and her work have also been featured in several films, including The Art of Making It (2021) and WNET’s FLOWSTATE/North Brooklyn Artists.

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