Chris Hugh Mackenzie is one of the most striking emerging painters of his generation. He  visions the site of painting as one of transcultural enquiry, fashioning  luminous cartographies that are filled with myriad forms of symbolism and communal memory. He describes his intention as a wish to evoke the same feelings as those of “souvenirs or postcards”—pictures that play between intentions of reality and the scope of the human imagination. 

Born in the 1980s, he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, and now lives in Ayr with his family, where he teaches fine art at Ayrshire College. In this penultimate episode of Season 1 of Studio Visit, Professor Omar Kholeif visits Chris at home and in his studio, exploring how inspiration is gleaned; enters into his family constellation, and dreams of a world whereby they could live in each other’s paintings—away from the gentrification of the city, in the warmth and communion of budding friendship—the kinship of shared ideals that art can make the world a better place.

Chris Hugh Mackenzie has exhibited in venues such as Red Door Gallery, Edinburgh; Inchmore Galleries, Inverness; Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine; and was the subject of a major survey exhibition entitled Hold Utopia in 2025-2026 held at Rozelle House Museum and Galleries, Ayr. Several new works, which are discussed on this podcast will feature in the international traveling exhibition, Dreamwork: Ancestors Echo in the House of Tomorrow, which opens at the Contemporary Art Museum: Helga De Alvear, Cáceres, Spain in November 2026, and is developed in collaboration with MAAT—Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, among other venues. 

Studio Visit is an artPost21 Production in association with Tabari.

Theme Tune: Stellar’s Sea Cow by CleckHuddersfax (Courtesy of our friend, Lawrence Abu Hamdan)

Produced by Levin Haegele with Omar Kholeif.

Hosted by Omar Kholeif.

Sunil Gupta MBE (b. 1953) is an Indian-born, Canadian-artist who uses photography to explore themes of sexual identity, migration, race, and the imagined constitution of the family. Born in New Delhi, for over five decades, Gupta has developed pioneering approaches to lens-based media and image culture.

In this #StudioVisit special, co-hosts Levin Haegele and Omar Kholeif enter the home and studio of Gupta that he shares with his creative collaborator and companion, Charan Singh in South London. At the breakfast table, pulling open archival boxes, gazing at contact sheets, the duo delve into the mysteries of what works of art are exposed to the light, exploring the push and pull of history, memory and desire

In Episode 3: Professor Omar Kholeif aka Doctor O's Birthday Special, Studio Visit co-creator travels solo to South-West London to visit artist Jai Chuhan in her home studio. The penetrating smell of oil paint summons them in, through, and across orbitals of feeling. In this textured world, they traverse worlds of lustrous color, elongated bodies constituting womanist worlds, via speculative cartographies pulled from Chuhan's unbounded imagination. Kholeif could have not have dreamt of a more thrilling encounter. They leave wishing that they had spent the decades sitting, looking, working, and dreaming with Jai Chuhan. Chuhan's art invites the spectator to navigate the psychological tension in her paintings, often exploring the possibilities of the female gaze. Jai Chuhan, Kholeif believes, and argues, is arguably one of Great Britain's most significant painters working today, worthy of being lauded with medals, museum solo exhibitions, and so much more!!

Jai Chuhan was born in Punjab, India and now lives and works in London. She moved to the UK as a child and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL between 1973-1977. Her work has been exhibited widely at museums and public galleries such as, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge; Tate Liverpool; Barbican Art Gallery, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Tramway, Glasgow and has featured in the Liverpool Biennial and the Asia Triennial, Manchester. Her work is held in public collections including the Arts Council Collection of England and Tate, UK.

Raffaela Naldi Rossano is an internationally recognized artist primarily based in Naples and around the Mediterranean. Her creative practice is rooted in her studies in psychology—both Jungian and Gestalt Theory. Exploring the limits of desire, memory and ancestral forms of transmission, Naldi creates multimedia installations, which integrate sculpture, moving image, sound, collective action, poetry and the oratorial.