The Selection Committee Radio Show with Nick Irzyk, 5/6/25

In this music-heavy show, painter Nick Irzyk brings a banging mixtape ranging from anarcho-punk to Finnish black metal to country.
We discuss his journey from the hardcore and skateboarding scene to zine-making, eventually leading to printmaking in college.
His paintings incorporate diagrammatic abstractions that resemble architectural blueprints or speculative spaces. The grid is a key structural tool, breaking forms into individual "cells" akin to a mirror ball or wireframe model.
There is a tension between clarity and ambiguity: in form versus space, scale, and references to industrial or institutional interiors like cockpits and nuclear reactors. These sometimes oppressive spatial compositions, force the viewer into tight confrontations with looming structures.
Underlying much of the work is a meditation on power—its potential energy, withheld force, and the emotional charge that creates a sense of terror through restraint and latent movement.