Explore every episode of the podcast Artist Decoded by Yoshino
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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
AD 265 | Justin Tyler Close
27 Aug 2024
01:04:18
Justin Tyler Close (b. 1984, Toronto, Canada) is an award-winning director, photographer & visual artist.
Justin founded the internationally distributed arts publication The Lab Magazine and was the active editor-in-chief/creative director from 2010-2018.
The interview magazine featured artists, designers, filmmakers, and activists such as Marina Abramovic, Wes Anderson and Noam Chomsky.
In 2020, Justin created his audio-visual installation titled The Fifty Eleven Project, which was exhibited at the prestigious Copenhagen Contemporary Museum.
Soon after, Justin wrote and directed two award-winning short films, Like Father Like Son and Where The Time Goes.
He is currently developing several projects, and set to direct his debut his feature film in the fall, 2025.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Justin's life in Athens, Greece (00:02:07)
What Justin has been focusing on recently (00:05:09)
The beginning stages of Justin's painting process and nostalgia (00:08:45)
Being nomadic, defining a home, and socially imposed ideals (00:12:26)
Justin's daily process and finding a flow state (00:22:06)
Justin's thoughts about turning 40 and what he learned in his 30s (00:27:49)
Finding a balance between personal and commercial work (00:28:20)
Rose Ides is an artist from San Diego specializing in veristic surrealism, and a writer exploring the sociology of the arts in the United States. With a background in sociology, education, public health, and art, her work aims to participate in creative liberation and artistic compassion. She has published two illustrative projects with Running Press, the Oracle of Pluto deck and the illustrated astrological compendium The Cosmic Symposium, which you can pick up at all major book retailers. You can connect with her on Instagram at @idesofrose.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Why Rose decided to pursue art full-time (00:02:08)
Artistic insecurities developing in childhood (00:04:49)
The history of the word "art" (00:11:15)
Breaking through illusions to simply "be" (00:15:24)
Using our emotions to fuel our creativity (00:25:34)
Translating the dreamworld (00:29:47)
Working through educational trauma and Rose wanting to begin her PhD program in Indigenous Rights (00:40:43)
James "Munky" Shaffer is best known as co-founder and guitarist for American rock band Korn. With a career spanning three decades, his latest project Venera ventures into experimental electronic territory.
Venera L.A.-based James Shaffer and Atlanta-based Chris Hunt converged as Venera in early 2022 in Downtown Los Angeles while working on songs for singer Xhoana X. Their kindred interest and backgrounds in dramatic texture, electronics, and experimentation inspired an improvisation-based recording process that seeks to explore a sonic universe defined by evolving atmosphere, cinematic noise, and select collaborations. Venera released their self-titled debut album on Oct. 13 via Ipecac Recordings.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Treating everyone with kindness (00:04:34)
James's newest project Venera (00:08:37)
Unexpected occurrences while making music for Venera (00:18:29)
How he experimented with new playing styles in Venera (00:21:34)
Switching studios or environments to channel into different ways of creating and experimenting (00:24:19)
Understanding one's own strengths and weaknesses / working with producer Ross Robinson (00:26:29)
Exploring the origin of Korn's unique sound (00:29:30)
Discussing alternate realities (00:31:26)
Creating time for creative practices (00:35:58)
James's daily habits and rituals (00:37:23)
James's struggle with addiction and how he overcame it (00:42:06)
Spiritual transcendence (00:45:00)
How James originally got into music (00:50:02)
The importance of having a creative outlet in one's life (00:54:28)
Sean Cheetham was born in 1977 in San Francisco, studied at the College of San Mateo, in California, and earned a B.F.A. degree with honors from Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California. His paintings have been included in numerous significant exhibitions internationally including the National Portrait Gallery in London. He has a devoted following of collectors and art students that are inspired by his work and distinctive technique. Primarily a figurative painter, Sean is known for his technical prowess in achieving accuracy and harmony in his alla prima paintings which he credits to a deep understanding of drawing and his own system of mixing colors which he uses adeptly to govern shadows, midtones and highlights. In addition to having an exceptional ability to understand, draw, and paint the human form, Cheetham's selection of subjects typically in familiar urban scenes contributes a truthful and often raw spirit that makes his work distinctive and a contemporary testimony of our time.
Kate Zambrano is a self-taught fine artist who applies major influences and themes such as the systemic urge to understand human nature, behavior, and the beauty in the expressive nuances.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Kate and Sean's relationship
COVID's effect on workflow
Personal hobbies and the meditation behind them
Endless curiosities within relationships and art
Community and interaction in the midst of COVID
Appreciating the mundane experiences of life
The origin of Kate and Sean's art practice
Balance
Teaching and lessons learned from the experience
Remaining flexible within your career
Relying on other mediums to feed into your main passions
Laura Fried is a Los Angeles-based curator and is a Co-Founder and Director of Active Cultures, a nonprofit organization that explores the convergence of food and art in contemporary life. Through collaborative projects by cooks and artists, Active Cultures' programming takes a multitude of forms such as performances, workshops, meals, and education initiatives. Throughout her career, Fried has advocated for artists and institutions while pushing forward new models for engagement and exhibition-making. She recently served as founding Artistic Director of the Seattle Art Fair, for which she organized a comprehensive program of large-scale installations, performances, talks, and projects. Fried was previously on the curatorial staff of Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA, as well as a curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Fried received her MA in the History of Art from Williams College and the Clark Art Institute.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Laura's journey in curation
Working within non-profit organizations
The convergence of food and art
Collaboration
Unique opportunities that are provided through the community
Laura's work with her business partner
Laura's advocation for artists and institutions
The innovation of the exhibition
The interconnected nature of art and food
The beginnings of "The MSG Club"
Future endeavors of Active Cultures in the midst of COVID-19
Cliqua is a directing duo (Pasqual Gutierrez and RJ Sanchez) born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. They have directed music videos for J Balvin, Rosalia, Bad Bunny, and others. In the span of a year, the duo has amassed over 700 million Youtube plays. They have also worked with brands like Adidas, Nike, Amazon, and Tecate. Currently Cliqua is continuing to shoot music videos and commercials while developing a feature-length film and an episodic television show.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Pasqual and RJ forming Cliqua
Reflections on past commercial and music video work
Intentionality within Cliqua's planning process
Going into the trenches within business and collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration
Shared business values
Examining the future, reevaluating work practices, and moving forward
Inspiration through others
Taking a step back from one's work
Controlling one's process
Being aware of faults
Workflow
Cliqua's recent music video for The Weeknd's track "Too Late"
As a visual artist, Adam Hall began working mostly with charcoals and oils. Self-taught, he attempts to mix traditional style with contemporary. Using palette knives and layering techniques he creates a true richness and depth to his work. Adam believes every painting is his next opportunity in truly expressing his vision and vibe through landscape. "Art is such a powerful tool and I strive to use it in the most positive way I know how."
While his passion for art began growing up in Wellsburg, West Virginia, his professional artistic career began nearly two decades ago in Nashville. When he was not on the road touring with bands all over the world, Adam slowly became involved with a local design firm whose clientele took great interest and demand for his art. Eventually, he started working full time with major record labels and recording artists in Nashville, all the while pursuing his dream to become a full-time artist.
Today, his work has been represented in galleries all over the United States and has been featured in such magazines as American Art Collector Magazine & Fine Art Connoisseur. Adam Hall proudly resides in Nashville, TN, with his wife Thais. Adam spends most of his time in his studio in Historic Franklin and continues to discover a fulfilling purpose through art.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The benefits of technology during COVID
Adam's early career in the music industry
Utilizing elements from outside fields of study and incorporating them into your artistic practice
Adding different experiences and tools to your "toolkit"
Adam's changing perspectives on painting
The dynamic of a career vs. a hobby
Being disciplined and producing organic results
Healthy competition
Surrounding yourself with individuals who are greater than you
Humility
Faith and understanding how it relates to our experiences
Being in a constant state of questioning
The notion of personal truth(s)
Religion and ideologies
Inclusivity and exclusivity
Remaining open to other aspects of the world
Adam's experiences traveling to Africa
Morality and ethics
Intentions behind our actions
The meaning behind Adam's ocean paintings
The emotion that translates through a person's artwork
Jeffrey Martin Zacks, American psychology educator, member of the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, and the Cognitive Science Society.
His book, Flicker: Your Brain on Movies, delves into the history of cinema and the latest research to explain what happens in your brain when you sit down in the theatre and the lights go out.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
How the brain helps us think perceive and aid us in solving problems
Mirror neurons
The impact that film has on it's viewers
Mimicking attributes of the brain and how it specifically helps us in daily life
Film perception
Evoking and implementing cues for specific responses within films
"The willing suspension of belief"
Kids viewing violent films and how it affects them when they are adults
Mindset and engagement
Age and films
Neuroplasticity
The "nimble brain"
The brain's development and how we can shift the way we think in order to retain a greater amount of plasticity
Movies and the brain's correspondence with what we are visualizing
"Feeling" what we are viewing
Creating plots and narratives that affect your emotion
The power of non-analytical effects
The documentary "The Social Dilemma", and Jeff's views on the way technology is progressing
"What are you subscribing to?"
Children and social media
Reflecting on how we use social media and how it influences our brain and habits
Self-taught, David Uzochukwu (b. 1998, Austria) creates (self-)portraits that speak of both placelessness and belonging. His work sees bodies shifting through nature, performance, and digital reconfiguration. Uzochukwu's photographs have been exhibited at Bozar, Photo Vogue Festival, and Unseen Amsterdam. He has collaborated with artists FKA twigs, Pharrell, and Iris Van Herpen, and received commissions by Dior and Hermès. Since 2019, he is a participant of CPH:DOX's talent development program. British Journal of Photography named him One to Watch in 2020. He currently lives in Berlin, where he pursues his first degree in philosophy.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
David's development and obsession with photography
Looking at other photographers work and being inspired
Distraction and aesthetic within David's work
Emotions and the expression of an image
David's photography process
Finding your signature approach
Navigating your youth, and standing your ground
Leaning into your intuition
Organic transition within artwork
Simplicity
Swallowing your feelings and fighting to have your needs met
Finding your artistic voice and rooting yourself within that
David's interest in philosophy
Ethics and practical reasoning for the things that you do
Aesthetics being used as a "glazing" to your art
Masculinity and the roles of gender
Strength and vulnerability
Futurism
Getting to the point of reflecting your opinions within your art
Bias
The future for Davids self-portraiture and photography
About Justin: Justin Mortimer (b.1970) is a British artist whose paintings consistently invite us to question the relationship between subject matter and content, beauty and horror, and between figuration and abstraction. While the imagery is almost exclusively pitiless, the texturing of the paint, the play between light and shade, and the passages that lead from photo-realist definition to near-abstract formlessness are so sensitively handled as to make the work at least partially redemptive as well as to indicate a key philosophical dimension: the oblique relationship between evidence and interpretation.
In his recent solo show, his works create paradoxical beauty in the landscape of oppression and violence around the world. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the escalating racial conflict, Justin Mortimer's solo exhibition sets the stage for reflection on the 'tomorrow' of our society.
Show Notes:
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:04:52 - Paradoxical Psychological Truth in Work
0:08:34 - Feeling Like An Outsider & Childhood Stories
0:12:57 - Balloons as Proxy For The Body & Learning Figurative Painting
0:17:06 - Painting Latex, Dysmorphia, and Masks
0:20:22 - BP Portrait Award and Learning and Unlearning Portrait Painting
0:24:25 - Digital Collaging The Overlooked Imagine
0:29:23 - Not Knowing When Paintings Are Done
0:32:54 - Empathy With People Diametrically Opposing Views
0:37:19 - New Meanings of Paintings Included in Solo Show "Tomorrow"
0:42:53 - COVID-19 Struggles
0:46:40 - "The Social Dilemma" by Jeff Orlowski and No More Truth
0:48:54 - Past Generations and "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" by Werner Herzog
0:54:02 - Decoding The Everyday Object
0:58:03 - Meanings Transform Over Time
1:02:11 - Painting David Bowie and Expectations of Portrait Painting
Mind Over Matter with Mike Lee x Columbia Tatone | AD 180
11 Oct 2020
00:53:21
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Mike: Mike Lee is a world-ranked professional boxer who has fought in some of the world's most iconic arenas like Madison Square Garden, Cowboys Stadium & The MGM Grand in front of millions of fans. In 2014 Mike was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, ankylosing spondylitis, that almost ended his career. In and out of hospitals for over two years he became tired of all the medications and treatments. Mike began searching for all-natural alternatives which lead him to discover CBD and all of its incredible physical and mental benefits! Using his background in finance and business, Mike felt that creating Soul CBD would be the perfect way to share his knowledge while helping others to defeat whatever battles with the pain they may be facing.
Columbia Tatone is an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer. Known for her dynamic cinematic action and relational, relevant storytelling, she often features unique elements of sci-fi in her work. Tatone studied Jazz at Berklee's College of Music in Boston and later received her Business degree at Vanguard University. As a commercial, music video, and narrative director, Columbia empowers her audience through eye-popping, thought-provoking action sequences. As a champion for women and the underrepresented, Tatone often uses her work to promote social justice while also taking us into different realities that highlight the emotional scar tissue of life.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Fight and flight mode
The state of flow
The fullness of living out your destiny
Mike's early stages of boxing
Performing with gratitude and happiness
Mike's autoimmune illness
Empathy and wellness
Grit
Eastern Medicine
Looking at pain as a gift
Mind over body
Reprogramming of your mind
How COVID has put everyone on an equal playing field
Paul Yoon is the author of four previous works of fiction: Once the Shore, which was a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year; and Run Me to Earth, which was one of Time magazine's Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in the Hudson Valley, New York.
About Edon: Edon Guraziu specializes in Concept Design & Consultation. These various industries range from Entertainment, Industrial, Defense, Medical, Consumer Products, and more. Many years of collaboration have resulted in meaningful relationships with the following companies, some of which include: 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Microsoft, Netflix, NVIDIA, MPC, Method Studios, JBC Safety Plastic Inc., StrikerVR, TheVRCompany, Swiss Federal Railways, and more.
About Jesse: Jesse Draxler was born in rural Wisconsin, studied in Minneapolis, MN, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. A formal mixed media & inter-disciplinary artist, Draxler has exhibited extensively both domestically and internationally.
Draxler had solo exhibitions in New York at the Booth Gallery in 2017 and 2016, and has been in exhibitions across Europe at galleries in Munich, London, Paris, Hamburg, and Berlin. Draxler collaborates with brands including Hugo Boss, McQ Alexander McQueen, and Ferrari, with original artwork appearing in Elle, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among other publications.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The path of friendship
The intentionality behind social media
Thinking about the motivations behind what you are doing
Dedication within your craft
Artists relation to sports
Mental fortitude and willpower
The meaning behind Jesse's latest show, "Table of Losses"
Letting artwork play itself out
The payoff of patience
The sense of urgency that comes with social media
Having a sense of mental separation between yourself and your artistic practice
Ego death
Copying yourself and it equating to an artistic death
Jesse continually re-inventing himself
The emotional weight behind the artwork
Taking criticism as an artist
Modern and Post-Modern art
Moral limits, and how art challenges your morals
Finding inspirations within everyday life
Jesse's music project "Reigning Cement"
Jesse's "Love, hate" relationship with his environment
Collaborative pieces of art being influenced by the environment
The concept of a suffering artist
Success and drive
Understanding and creating from a place of purpose
About Yasmine: Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates overlapping tensions around religion, gender, and third-culture identity. Her recent work includes immersive installation, fiber etching, and mixed media collage using personal archives and found imagery.
Diaz has exhibited and performed at spaces including the Brava Theater in San Francisco, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, and the Torrance Art Museum. She is a recipient of the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship (2019) with works included in the collections of LACMA, UCLA, and the Arab American National Museum. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The background behind the title of Yazmine's latest show "Soft Powers"
The concept of "code-switching"
Navigating different worlds within the world we live in
Cultural differences Yazmine has experienced and how it has personally developed in her work
Growing up within two different cultures and countries
A nuanced discussion on arranged marriage and forced arranged marriage and the hardship that came with it
Online dating and "matchmaking" and how it has affected our world
Yasmine's journey to New Mexico
Poverty, capitalism, and the disbursement of power
Yazmine's current work and why she chose the 90s as a timepiece
Engagement between the artist, the content, and the viewer
The business of art and the complications that come with selling art
"Social practice" of art
The complicated reality of morals and ethics within different career fields
The concept of death and knowing what you stand for
Being intentional of why you want power and resources
About Pádraig: Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian from Ireland whose poetry and prose have been published widely across Ireland, the US, and the UK. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being, a hugely successful podcast where he explores a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing, this podcast had more than a million downloads of its first season. The second season starts on the 28th of September. Mondays and Fridays for twelve weeks.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
What Padraig's poem means to him, reflecting back on it
Life being circular
Padraig's writing process
The beauty in the confluence of various things coming together
Padraig's roots within writing poetry
Embracing the flourishing of life
Isolation within artists
The "peasant poet"
Cultural conflict
Shelter and the shadow
Leaning into self-discovery within our life
Considering things that have been ingrained within us and actively challenging their purpose within our live
The Cosmic Nod with Colin Frangicetto (Circa Survive) | AD 175
13 Sep 2020
01:03:23
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Colin: Colin Frangicetto is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician (Circa Survive & Psychic Babble), and podcaster (The Cosmic Nod). He lives and works in Portland, OR.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The genesis of Circa Survive
Colin's experiences with psychedelic drugs at an early age, and how it affected his view of life in both the present and future
Empathy towards others
Being present with an individual
Lessons learned within political unrest
Learning to intentionally listen to those who you disagree with
"Being your own Buddha" and living the teachings you subscribe to
Colin's journey with ayahuasca
Intentions of reciprocity
The concept of giving and taking
Homelessness being on the rise within L.A. and Portland
Giving your life to the arts
Life as an artist
The difficulty of not being able to tour throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
Circa Survive's "rhythm of touring"
An artists' work turning into a brand
Being connected to yourself and being comfortable in your own skin
About Carlos: Carlos Torres has been tattooing for over 20 years and is mostly self-taught. Early in his career, Carlos worked at a couple of tattoo shops before he got his big break at So. Cal Tattoo in San Pedro, CA. It was there he learned the most and built his tattoo portfolio. Carlos specializes in black & grey realism and surrealism tattoos and loves creating original pieces of art. In addition to tattooing, he enjoys photography, painting, sculpting, teaching workshops, and traveling. His travels to international and domestic conventions have earned him awards including Best Small Black & Gray, Best Large Black & Gray, and Best Backpiece.
In October of 2017, Carlos opened his own studio, The Raven and The Wolves. This fine art gallery and tattoo studio is located in the heart of downtown Long Beach and is home to 8 artists.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Carlos' start in tattooing
The power of mentorship
Apprenticeship in the tattoo practice
Intuition and learning to be in-tune with your gut
The ever-changing nature of tattooing
The art of tattooing in relation to other mediums
Carlos' love for realism
Being a "loose painter on skin"
Mastering a medium
Mood and stress having a factor in tattooing
The human element, and subjectivity towards ideas
The clients desire for a tattoo, versus the artist's interpretation and advice
Carlos' recent work within oil paints
Freedom
Growing up in the ghetto
Staying positive in the midst of life
Teaching making you a better artist
Being informed by toggling back between art medium
Covid-19 and Carlos' time spend thinking about lif
Taking time off and implementing fresh ideas into your ar
Creatives becoming caricatures of themselves
Having child-like sensibilities with your art practice
Sowing Seeds For The Future While Living In The Present with Sophia Rokhlin | AD 173
18 Aug 2020
00:50:34
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Sophia: Sophia Rokhlin is an author, speaker, and nonprofit organizer dedicated to supporting the conservation of indigenous wisdom and territory. Through engaged botany and ecology, she bridges the worlds of traditional ecological knowledge and Western science.
She is a Program Coordinator at the Chaikuni Institute, supporting sustainable ayahuasca cultivation and reforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. She is a co-author of When Plants Dream: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism, and the Global Psychedelic Renaissance (Watkins, 2019) on the global spread of ayahuasca. She helps coordinate Folk Medicine, a live-stream benefit for communities of the Amazon rainforest impacted by COVID-19. She sits in the Ayahuasca Community Committee for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. Her research appears in publications including the New York Times and the BBC.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The beginning stages of Sophia's work with indigenous people groups
How human communities understand and grow in community with each other
The differences between the "American path" vs the path that indigenous people groups take
The association of wavelengths and the togetherness of individuals
How western culture has lost a sense of togetherness
The concept of reciprocity
"Sowing seeds for the future, while living in the present"
Capitalism and the approach to success
Coronavirus and it's affect to our larger structures
Working together in teams
Happiness
Technology and social innovations
How indigenous people groups approach health and wellness
America viewing health in an allopathic way
Environmentalism
The romanticization of interconnectedness
The traditional and modern uses of Ayahuasca
Meditation, present-mindedness, and prayer
The loss of ritual within modern society
Being honest with yourself
Living in a world full of tools, but having the lack of community to utilize them
Human wisdom
The mindset of jumping from interest to interest, rather than going deeper into a context
Happiness and Evolutionary Psychology with William Von Hippel | AD 172
06 Aug 2020
00:51:36
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About William: William von Hippel, Ph.D., grew up in Alaska, got his B.A. at Yale and his PhD at the University of Michigan, and then taught for a dozen years at Ohio State University before finding his way to Australia, where he is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland. He has published more than a hundred articles, chapters, and edited books in social psychology, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, the BBC, Le Monde, El Mundo, Der Spiegel, and The Australian.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
William's start in social evolutionary science
The fear we experience being attributed to evolution
Technology affecting our evolution
Social vs. technological innovations
The difference and similarities between hunter and gatherers and us now living in the modern world
Great ideas being found
Sexual selection within evolution and how it has shifted with the influence of dating apps and the internet
Maximizers vs. satisficers
Finding the fundamental purpose of your life
The meaning of life
Coronavirus and self-isolation
The evolution of collaboration
Being present-minded
The fallibility of memories
Sociopathic tendencies within humans
The cost of empathy
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and self-actualization
"Killing the Mastadon"
How art and science fit within evolution.
Objectivity
The acceptance of the truth
The end result of science and art being incredibly similar
Greetings From The Wild Wild West with Cj Hendry | AD 171
28 Jul 2020
01:18:29
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About CJ: Cj Hendry (b. 1988) is a New York based artist originally from Brisbane, Australia. Globally renowned for her large-scale, photo-realistic drawings of consumer goods and immense, interactive exhibitions, she has developed a dedicated following through her unique brand of technical mastery and conceptual depth.
A self-professed "lover of products", Hendry is heir to the Pop Art tradition that firmly established depictions of everyday objects and mass culture in the art historical canon. In the footsteps of Andy Warhol, Hendry generates instantaneously appealing images that celebrate kitsch aesthetics and it's ubiquitous presence in contemporary digital culture.
More recently, the artist has incorporated new subject matter to delve into deep-seated concerns and anxieties of current society. After seven years of studying architecture and finance in Australia, Hendry abandoned the endeavor in 2014 to pursue art full-time. She has since presented 6 solo exhibitions across Australia, the U.S., and Asia. In 2017, the artist collaborated with esteemed fashion house Christian Louboutin to present her first works in color during the 2017 edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Adaptability
Not being bogged down by life and "going on with the show"
The dynamic of achieving greatness without falling into individualistic, isolated, and greedy viewpoints.
Discipline, and its relation to our daily life.
The importance of community, and how opening yourself up and allowing people to be involved with what you are doing brings about a particular level of freedom.
The concept of creative energy - Being relaxed, calm, and effortless within your life and art practice.
Art not about being able to draw something well. Rather, art being more about the conceptual nature behind it.
Creatively letting go of what others think about you, and doing work that is fulfilling for yourself within art.
Clusters of People Shapeshifting Into One with Anna Park | AD 170
23 Jul 2020
01:15:10
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Anna: Anna Park is a contemporary artist based in New York City, creating pieces that blur the lines between figurative and abstract work.
Creating a dazed, yet emotional experience, Anna's central content revolves around larger bodies of people within social settings while provoking a vaporous and ethereal sensation.
Her most recent work takes on a new form, having a larger, tangled, and fragmented abstraction that envelops the viewer as the cacophony of black and white charcoal reveals intimate messages relating to society and the people we interact with.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The inspiration behind her most recent work describing them as an "amalgamation of people"
The desire for "the viewer can become the voyager"
Anna feeling that the inspiration for her new body of work can be attributed to her living in New York City
The dynamic of paintings feeling nostalgic and how our subconscious draws from past memories without truly knowing why
Work and life during the quarantine
The dynamic of creating art in a self-fulfilling way vs creating art specifically for other people
Anna's upbringing moving from multiple states and her interactions with her mentor, Bruce Roberson, and how he "taught her everything" and how it solidified Anna's desire to be an artist
Gratitude surrounding Anna's move to New York
Submergence within different cultures
Community
Power structures and how toxic masculinity has permeated the world and made it difficult to empathize and move past our hierarchical viewpoints
Johan Van Mullem (Belgian painter born in 1959) persisted in his youthful search for wrinkled faces, seeking the beauty he recognized in an experience engraved on the faces and in the hands. Since then, the face remains the major subject of his work but over time reversing the imprint of it on his own face while these subjects seem to rejuvenate, disappearing or emerging in a halo of light in old-fashioned sfumato, offering the gaze an escape into the world of emotion, because Johan van Mullem's work is an invitation to introspection, to a journey whose omnipresent emotional charge cannot leave indifferent as the depth is often dizzying. The superimposition and erasure of the many smooth layers of the diluted inks further accentuate this feeling of inexpressible presence on the canvas. The self-taught mastery of the specific and unique technicality of his work because only executed in etching ink (an extension of his experience as an engraver) gives his work an additional exceptional character. Complete artist, designer, painter, and sculptor, (but also poet and musician) Johan Van Mullem strives to create a multiple, diverse but absolutely coherent work offering links and bridges to all our senses awakened by this work that projects as much into the past as into a contemporaneity.
The Intersection Between Art, Science, and Spirituality with Ryan York x Justin Daashuur Hopkins | AD 169
17 Jul 2020
00:44:15
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Ryan: Ryan York is a Doctor of Philosophy, postdoctoral scholar within the department of neurobiology at Stanford University, and an author of over a dozen publications.
His research is focused on the evolutionary genomic basis of brain and behavior with a specific interest in the courtship behaviors of Lake Malawi cichlid fish.
Having a passion for music and working in constant collaboration with individuals such as Justin Daashuur Hopkins, Ryan borders the line between highly intellectual compositions and spontaneous, free-flowing, and seemingly primal soundscapes
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Ryan's work as an evolutionary biologist, and his specific project working within computational methods in understanding behaviors
Applying concepts used within artificial intelligence and using them for work in other areas of science
The overlap of art and science
The idea of repeatability
Collective consciousness and collaboration
Provisional answers and the unknown
Continually shifting based upon your ever-changing context
Scientific having ties to elements of spirituality
Free will
Humility
The power of the mind
Philosophy of science
Different levels of understanding
Dogmatism
Placebo's having a similarity to art
The subconscious vs analytical instinct
Slow vs fast understanding and experience
Creativity being an exploration of what the world is
About Daniele: Bolelli reads a passage about fear from his book, "Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting"
Daniele Bolelli (born January 11, 1974) is an Italian-American writer, university professor, martial artist, and podcaster based in Southern California. He is the author of several books on philosophy, and martial arts, including On the Warrior's Path. Known for his writing since the 1990s in Italy and the early 2000s in the United States, Bolelli rose to greater public prominence in the 2010s, beginning with his appearances on popular podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience. He went on to create his own podcasts, and has hosted The Drunken Taoist since 2012 and History on Fire since 2015.
Bolelli holds M.As in American Indian Studies and history from UCLA and California State University, Long Beach, and did postdoctoral research in history at Cardiff University. As a professor, he has taught a wide variety of courses in the arts, humanities, and social sciences on topics including Native American history and culture, Taoist philosophy, and Ancient Rome. He teaches at CSULB and Santa Monica College.
About Jerome: Acclaimed and revered painter, Jerome Lagarrigue, was born in France to a father who was an illustrator and a mother who was a writer and journalist. Being rooted within a world of creativity and culture, Jerome's life - from youth to adulthood, can be described as a type of compelling metamorphosis, including experiences both from a creative and racial point of view which directly saturates his current work as a painter.
Finding love within depicting movement inside of his work, Jerome continues to create powerful work that calls into question particular aspects of the world we live in and frames the subtle and reflective essence of human beings.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Jerome being exposed to two different cultures, and how it offered both confusing and later, harmonious element to his life as a whole
The topic of race – its objectivity, functionality, horrific nature, and the struggles that have come with being associated with a specific race
Jerome's upbringing - living both in France and Harlem, and how he was always drawing as a child
The effects of social injustices on racial identity
The layered nature of the social justice protests and riots
Capitalism shaping the way we live our lives
The genesis of creativity
Decisions of engaging in a subject matter
Searching continually within art
The power in saying no
Creative instinct
The wave and the weight of the reaction to coronavirus
Captivation within the movement and process of painting
Stanly Kubrick's process and its relation to creativity
The growth from the mentality of seeing the world as either one or another absolute into viewing the world as being "gray"
An Individual's desire to be comfortable rather than be challenged
Jerome's decision to paint riots
The connection of energy, nature, and humanism within paining
Digital Marketing In The Modern Age with CJ Johnson | AD 167
28 Jun 2020
00:57:00
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About CJ: CJ Johnson is an acclaimed Speaker and Digital Marketing Consultant, servicing Fortune 50 clients worldwide and a prominent digital influencer with hundreds of thousands of online supporters. CJ is best known for creating successful influencer marketing campaigns as both an influencer and a Consultant, helping content creators and companies maximize their ROI. As a successful influencer, CJ uses his voice for creative storytelling to provide inspiration, digital marketing tips, and work/life balance advice in our modern era. As a Consultant, CJ specializes in digital brand strategy, creative campaigns, influencer marketing, future of work, diversity & inclusion, and trend forecasting. His work specializes in the technology, fashion, lifestyle, political, travel, and entertainment industries. Currently, CJ is a GQ Insider, Google Next Gen Policy Leader, and a Digital Marketing Consultant to innovative companies.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The joys of having a daughter
Couch surfing while finishing college in Los Angeles
Finding success through design and conscious actions
Questioning Existence with Steven Assael x John Wentz | AD 166
28 Jun 2020
01:43:18
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Steven: Steven Assael (born in 1957), is an award-winning American painter, credited most for his masterful artistry within his figure work and modern re-envisioning of the neo-classical, naturalist, and romantic techniques of old.
Being captivated with what the human form and image represent, ever-changing and seemingly random elements and deeply rooted emotional intelligence, Assael traverses what it is to be human, and the subtleties included within an organic connection.
Assael's latest work includes his collaboration between himself and his represented gallery titled "Now We Meet Again" which focuses on individuals presenting images of loved ones, or individuals of significance to Assael through Zoom calls. Working through the purpose of the painting, Assael paints not only the image, but interweaves the very emotional framework and intentions the recipient presented beforehand.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Seeking out advantages within painting and connecting with people during quarantine
Separation bringing us together
The intimate process of working with models and how they directly or indirectly affect the painting
Allowing for change within his overall creative vision
Teaching painting over Zoom
What makes a good teacher
The search for finding the right questions to ask
Experience motivating change and providing a renewal of what you want
Creating situations of exploration for oneself
Extracting the right vocabulary while creating
The element of control and power that children express when drawing different objects
Understanding the dynamic of copying a subject while painting, and how that evolves into a deeper exploration of shapes, tone, atmospheres, and the figure itself.
Giving breadth to form
A great work of art being infectious
The nature of romanticism
Working from life being an "inquiry into your own humanness"
The idea of questioning and rebelling within a visual outlook
Human nature
The environment of New York throughout the last forty years, and how it has changed
The importance of theatre and the work of actors
Symmetry and asymmetry, and its importance within artform and observation
"Everything is everything" approach to life
Learning what to see flowing into learning how to paint
Nature being sporadic, and how we must become "like water" in order to succeed in our strategies in life
About Damian: Damian Joseph Kulash Jr. (born October 7, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and music video director who is best known for being the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band OK Go.
Damien was born in Washington DC and spent a large amount of time studying at the Interlochen Arts Camp. He was active in bands at his time at Brown University, eventually winning a prize in music composition.
From the time span of 2005-2007 while the band released and was touring off of the "Oh No" album, the music video "A Million Ways" ended up being the most downloaded video with over 9 million downloads.
The band decided to cut ties with their major record label deals with EMI and Capitol Records, and eventually started their own label, Paracadute, in 2010.
OK Go released their most recent album completely free on their website, which includes rarities, B-sides, and covers of other songs.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Damian discusses how both he and his family contracted coronavirus and how in hindsight, the time spent quarantined yielded different effects and revelations that Damian was not expecting.
Damian speaks on how he personally finds hope within the world and how it comes to him emotionally rather than a linearly or algorithmically.
"When the world breaks down or the rules shift in such a drastic way, it's a little like the shackles come off and everything begins to reconfigure. That is terrifying but it also brings an element of hope…"
Deconstruction and equalization of power structures within the world and hope shining through the cracks of society shifting.
The depth of what we experience and how it relates to the "Truth".
Life being a puzzle with the pieces everchanging, how it relates to our humanity, and how we see others and ourselves change.
Giving yourself the freedom to tread new waters, and to genuinely feel emotions.
Dynamic of how we are all working together for a common goal.
Collaboration and calling back to others who have to tread the path before us. "We are not individual actors"
Mutable Set with Blake Mills x Justin Daashuur Hopkins | AD 164
19 Jun 2020
01:07:26
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Blake: Blake Mills is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, producer, and owner of "Record Collection" and a Grammy Award-winning artist based in California.
Mills has performed on over two hundred recordings, released four solo records, and worked with artists such as Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple, and Bob Dylan.
Playing as both a session guitarist and composing his own material, Mills meticulously masters both the abstract and intentionality of multiple instruments and seeks to explore the sounds they each have to offer.
After working with artists such as Fiona Apple, and Andrew Bird, Mills revisited the studio and developed the sounds and resonant textures that became "Mutable Set" - a collection of eleven songs that focus on the dissonance of modern life.
Failure Is An Illusion with Christine Yuan | AD 163
16 Jun 2020
00:51:35
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Christine: Christine Yuan is an Emmy-award winning director whose television documentaries have won Best Culture & History Documentary at the 2018 LA Area Emmy, Best Documentary at the 2018 Golden Mic Awards, and Best Feature Documentary at the 2017 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. Her narrative work has screened at the Cannes Film Festival Court Metrage, Marfa Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, The Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, and more. Her commercial work has been shortlisted for D&AD's Next Director Award, 1.4 Awards Show, Young Guns 15 Awards, and Shoot's Director's Showcase. Her short films and music videos have been featured on Nowness, i-D, Dazed, Fader, booooooom, Vice, and more.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Discipline being instilled through the act of running and physical activities
Haruki Murakami's book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"
Painting as an introduction to Yuan's interest in creating
Lessons she learned from her grandmother about the joy of living a simple life
Staying grounded and present
Her short film, "DIYU"
Kundalini Yoga
Her background growing up in Christian schools
Talent and discipline
The idea of "Imposter Syndrome"
Creating substance in one's own being
Growing up as an only child
Accepting and finding catharsis in loneliness
The differences between directing a commercial, music video, and/or a short film
Gender inequality that exists in the film industry
"Be Water (A Bruce Lee Story)" with Bao Nguyen | AD 162
11 Jun 2020
00:51:16
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Bao: Bao Nguyen is an award-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles and Saigon. As the child of Vietnamese war refugees, he first pursued law to appease his parents but soon found his passion in film. His directorial debut, Live from New York!, opened the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Firelight Media Documentary Lab. He earned his BA at New York University and his MFA at the School of Visual Arts.
About "Be Water" In 1971, before his superstardom, Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong to get the opportunities to be a lead actor that eluded him in America. In the two years before his untimely death, Lee completed four films, which changed the history of film and made him a household name. Through rare archival footage, memories of family and friends, and his own words, the story of that time and Lee's prior experiences are told with an intimacy and immediacy that have infrequently been used in earlier tellings of his legend.
Growing up and living between the West and the East, Lee was ahead of his time in thinking about the transnational audience. He experienced the racist reaction of an American film industry inundated by a subservient and menacing image of Asian people—and learned he'd have to tell his own stories to escape it. Director Bao Nguyen elegantly weaves Lee's personal struggle for visibility with that of his times and reminds us that though it was for a short time, Lee's star burned so brightly we still see it today. Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Nguyen's views on the coronavirus and the recent protests in the US
Racial equality
Nguyen's experiences as a child, having parents who were war refugees from Vietnam, his experiences drawing out of curiosity for storytelling, and how it eventually developed into a multi-dimensional, intentional, and intimate form of filmmaking
Bruce Lee's impact on American and Asian American culture, which captured Bao's attention in a unique way
Within his early films, Bruce "was fighting for his voice to be heard."
As Bao matured and entered college, his views on social justice and the stories that could be told through these particular individuals began to flourish.
The more intimate, immature version of Bruce's life stood out within Bao's research. Within this point of time, Lee was taught how to have a strong sense of identity as an Asian American.
Bao and Yoshino speak on the idea of having no regrets and letting go with particular things in life, and how being grateful and present-minded is vital.
Yoshino and Bao talk about the role of a teacher and the dynamic they have with their students. A great teacher differs from a normal teacher in their ability to allow students to explore themselves honestly.
Bruce's desired to have his cultural viewpoints expressed in American culture
On Identity And Representation with Ludovic Nkoth | AD 161
08 Jun 2020
00:42:24
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Ludovic: On October 16, 1994, Ludovic Nkoth (LNkoth) was born in Cameroon, West Africa. Growing up in African, Ludovic learned to express himself creatively at a very young age. Through his vibrant use of color and ability to capture life through a distinct lens, Ludovic's past time was consumed with rough sketches of the beautiful cities of Cameroon.
Ludovic's work is heavily informed by the events in his life which led him to move, as a young boy of 13 years old, from his native Cameroon to the United States. Leaving his birth-mother and family, the young man found solace and comfort in the creative process while being raised primarily as a stranger in a strange land. It wasn't until he migrated to the united states that he began to reconsider his own culture as a catalyst to locate his identity. For Ludovic, who learned to speak English as a teenager in a world completely alien to him, still – at times – finds himself displaced in his adopted country. In the states, he is viewed as an African, but in Africa, he is viewed American – leaving the passionate young artist in a sort of ambiguous and cyclical displacement of identity. Given the contentious issues of identity, patriotism, Confederate ideologies and racial bias growing in the States at the time of this writing, the paintings and his perspective seem of increasing relevance.
As such, the work presents a complex but highly personal investigation of a very personalized view of Africa; his family history; and the cultures, traditions, and ideas of Africa and its diaspora pre-and post-colonialism. They are approached with a type of naive brusqueness, an immediacy and boldness of colour that suggests both a passion and sense of discovery. African symbols such as masks, patterns, and other symbols of identity and culture remain consistent throughout. He states that through creation, the works attempt to "regain the things that were taking away from [his] people. Things such as power, culture, the idea of self and the idea of being black and proud."
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Film by Werner Herzog "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"
The origins of creativity
Growing up in Cameroon and moving to the US at the age of 13
Meeting artist Kerry James Marshall
Identity
The civil war in his native country of Cameroon
Loving one's self
Understanding traditional "voodoo" practices in Africa versus the demonization of "voodoo" by European settlers
Comparing the historical colonization patterns of the United States and Africa
The importance of preserving Cameroonian tradition
Clarity through the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine
Jacqueline Castel is an internationally award-winning director, screenwriter, and curator based in NYC. Her short film work has been featured at more than fifty festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, BAMcinemaFest, Sitges, and Fantasia. She has written for and directed cult auteurs John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and collaborated on a film with David Lynch for his Festival of Disruption in 2018. Her most recent short film, a portrait of Cannes award-winning actor Caleb Landry Jones, debuted on NOWNESS in 2021. Castel's work has appeared in The New York Times, The BBC, Dazed, VICE, Italian Vogue, Interview Magazine, and on AMC's Shudder. She earned her BFA with honors at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. My Animal is her feature film debut.
Sifting Through Abstraction with Janna Watson | AD 160
23 May 2020
00:46:16
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Janna: Canadian painter Janna Watson uses abstraction as both an escape from and return to the real. As the world we know dematerializes into paint strokes, so too does her paint take stage as its very own character in a multi-act drama of composition. Bundles of colour, made up of discrete yet inseparable instances of pigment—what Watson refers to as "moments"—are teeming and poised as though caught mid-multiplication. Sweeps of paint re-direct sharply and fold over themselves; thin, rigid ink lines cut into the pictorial field as rudimentary elements in an increasingly complex system of painterly language. All the components play out on a surface of slow, chromatic gradation. Like many of Watson's players, these backdrops tenderly gesture toward the familiar, stopping just short of representation. The result is a conceptual project (and distinct, stylistic signature) that speaks to a contemporary milieu in which abstract painting is not the retreat of meaning into an unrecognizable realm, but rather the emergence of medium as a "figure" in its own self-inscribed world of feeling and being. Watson does more than reveal paint's potential to emote—she gives it a space to reveal itself, in its own time.
Janna Watson holds an honours degree in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design, and since graduating has exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally in over thirty solo exhibitions. Her work has appeared in notable public collections including those of TD Bank, CIBC, Telus, the Ritz-Carlton, ONi ONE, the Soho Metropolitan Hotel, and Saks Fifth Avenue. In 2013, she was commissioned to create an impressive, 11-foot painting for the lobby of AURA, Canada's tallest residential building.
Watson's paintings circulate regularly at international fairs, including Art Toronto, CONTEXT Art Miami, and in Seattle, where they were recently featured by Artsy in its list of "10 Works to Collect at the Seattle Art Fair." Watson's work has been covered by publications such as The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, and House & Home.
Janna Watson also runs Studio Watson, a business dedicated to redefining interiors with hand-tufted floor pieces inspired by the artist's abstract compositions.
She lives and works in Toronto.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Janna's experience as a youth growing up in a small town in northern Ontario with her father being a Pentecostal pastor.
"Living in somewhat of a bubble… "naive atmosphere" as a child." She was an introvert and spent her growing life in the church, which Janna says added to the naïve atmosphere.
Janna reflects about her experiences coming out at the age of 18, her process of beginning to question the very faith she grew up believing, and how the world might be moving around her.
Janna explains how she came to a particular point of surrender in the wrestling of her faith and personal life. – Critical point within her story; being a major catalyst for who she is today.
Janna realized later on in her life how much she needed to "touch into" the spiritual world and tap into surrender.
The process of covering all of her paintings with resin during a rough period in her life. "Shiny and sexy – glossing over the flaws."
Janna explains speaking in tongues and how she personally uses it within her prayer life and her thoughts on how speaking in this manner somehow transports her to her subconscious state of mind to be able to translate those feelings in her artwork.
Janna's grandfather pushing her to draw the "essence of things" in her drawings and how they needed to be wilder. He taught her the art of abstraction.
Janna reflects on the title of her show speaking to the way we are currently living our lives as the coronavirus is occurring.
About David: David Cheifetz is an internationally acclaimed and collected artist who continues to push the limits of contemporary realist oil painting. David and his family live in Olympia, WA.
"Reflecting the language of dreams, these dark, hyperrealistic tableaux suggest bizarre and intriguing narratives. Cheifetz paints alla prima, an oil painting technique in which wet paint is applied to previous layers of wet paint. He works without detailed underpainting or studies, creating atmosphere through prominent, expressive brushstrokes and strong chiaroscuro." -Artsy.net
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
David's time in quarantine, and reflecting during this time
David's workshop cancelation in Italy due to COVID-19
Feeling out-of-the-game, but only in perception
His family life, and time with his children
Painting and the inspiration that goes behind it.
Allowing himself to find meaning in a painting after it is finished
The dynamic of Cheifetz's painting vs. writing practice
Experiences of having children and David's reflection on approaching his own personal life with an element of forgiveness.
On Painting, Fashion, And Social Awareness with Erin Nicole Henry | AD 158
18 May 2020
00:43:51
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Erin: Erin Nicole Henry is a contemporary artist based in Atlanta, Georgia, where she began working in the arts at an early age. After leaving art school, her cutting edge paintings made a loud arrival into the art world since they began regularly showing in multiple galleries around the city.
Erin examines her environment through surrealist portraits of the human figure. Her work is intentional, with confident brushstrokes, rich layers of color, and details that pull you in. Her unique style and curious subject matter have captured the attention of art lovers and collectors across the globe. Working from her studio in Atlanta, Erin has chosen to use her growing platform as an artist and a working model to spark conversation and bring awareness to issues surrounding LGBTQ equality, sexual harassment, and abuse.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Differences in her work as a painter in contrast to her work as a mode
Her love for horror films
The superficiality that exists in the fashion world
Consumerism
Healthy understandings of body image
Being nomadic
Finding purpose
Museums: The Broad
Artists: Matthew Barney, Jenny Saville
Films: Midsommar (Ari Aster
Authors: Nancy Farmer, Lidia Yuknavitch, and David Foster Wallace
About Aja: "As a psychic and medium, I find meditation to be a mandatory part of my private practice. Meditation is a foundational piece of my ability to connect to the other side, and to refresh my energy.
This meditation is part of an ongoing project that my partner and I are working on entitled, "Tides". Each meditation is channeled through my automatic writing practice, allowing the spirits I work with to directly connect each listener with themes and imagery they believe can activate change, healing, and release. The listener is encouraged to allow themselves to be guided through this third eye journey without expectation to experience whatever comes through. Whether or not you receive messages or guidance from your spiritual teams or your subconscious - it all matters. Do your best to surrender to whatever your mind wishes to share with you.
About Young Pueblo: The inward movement can be summarized as follows: we observe ourselves, we accept what we find without judgment, we let it go, and the actual release causes our transformation. We are already always changing, but when we focus on healing we can change in the direction of our choosing; these are moments when we intentionally reclaim our power. Every moment we take to know ourselves, we return as someone new.- Yung Pueblo
Diego Perez is a meditator, writer, and speaker who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name Yung Pueblo. Online he reaches hundreds of thousands of people every month through his written works that focus on the reality of self-healing, the movement from self-love to unconditional love, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves. His first book, Inward, was self-published and quickly became a bestseller on Amazon. A revised and expanded edition of Inward has recently been published and is now available in bookstores around the world.
The name Yung Pueblo means young people; it serves to remind him of his Ecuadorian roots, his experiences in activism, and that the collective of humanity is in the midst of important growth. Diego's practice of Vipassana meditation, as taught by S.N. Goenka, has given him a deeper understanding of liberation that inspires his writing. Through writing and speaking he aims to support the healing of the individual, knowing that when people release their personal burdens it helps humanity build a global peace.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
A discussion on Yung Pueblo's recent book, "Inward"
How creativity has emerged from letting go in his meditation journey, and exploring healing through writing
Attending meditation retreats and his practice of Vipassana
The importance of practicing meditation even for individuals who haven't had major life traumas
Selfless and unconditional love
Self-love A reflection on Yung Pueblo's addiction to pleasure and his awareness of how much it dictated his life
The idea of embracing change, and being present in the moment
Overcoming an aversion to introspective reflection of himself, and becoming ok with being alone
Finding balance amongst his writing practice, administrative work, and meditation
Combining Creative Skill Sets with Daan Noppen | AD 156
28 Apr 2020
00:55:06
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Daan: Daan Noppen (1977), born in Arnhem (The Netherlands) is an international artist mainly working in drawing and painting. He is best known for his realistic larger than life drawings of portraits and bodies. Physics and it's relation to our being, our emotions, plays a big part in his work. The artist plays with notions of reality by projecting time as a physical dimension. Rather than becoming something 'scientific' this opens up a visual world of our hidden layers of our desires, our pain and our cry for being loved.
'Amsterdam based artist Daan Noppen brings a special dynamism to his pencil drawings of still life and portraits. His works are not only eye-catching for their precise layering of details, but also in their massive size that gives his subjects a more palpable presence. A closer look at each piece reveals mathematical equations in between the pencil lines that relate to our reality. More recent works express the artist's continued fascination with mathematics, geometry, and physics, as his figures appear to be gauged, dissipate, and intermingle in a void of empty vector space'. - Hi-Fructose Magazine (March 2016)
Daan Noppen's work has been exhibited in New York(USA), New Orleans(USA), Mexico DF(Mexico), Shanghai(China), Metz(France), Luxembourg(Luxembourg), Munchen(Germany), Traun(Austria), Antwerp(Belgium) and in Amstedam (The Netherlands). The artists Symmetry I&II drawing recently won an A'design Award 2016 in the category Arts, craft and ready made.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
His origin story within the arts
The breaking down of traditional gender roles
A residency that he did at Andrew Salgado's studio in London
The differentiation between tasteful nudes and pornography
Using different creative skill sets in conjunction with your current art medium
Book: "The Way Of The Superior Man" by David Deida
5 Feelings To Honor In The Midst Of A Crisis with Yore | MIND/WAVE #3
13 Apr 2020
00:06:22
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Yore:
Equal parts emotive and angelic, Yore's voice is one of those rare wonders that can make the hairs on your arms stand to attention. Quietly arriving on the scene this year with his hypnotic single "Knew Better," the LA-based artist is bringing a conceptual approach to modern soul music, blending electronic and classical influences with meticulously layered vocals.
It has been a long time coming – having previously held down a career in music under a different moniker, an intense period of meditation and solitude led to a reinvention as Yore. There's a certain yearning to his compositions, something Yore describes as "the nostalgia of what could have been" – combined with his shadowy, cinematic visuals it makes for an intense experience. - HUNGER Magazine, 2018
A Guided Meditation with Cory Allen | MIND/WAVE #2
10 Apr 2020
00:33:01
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Cory: "Create space in your heart and mind. Live in the present moment.
There are many styles of meditation, approaches to mindfulness, and paths to living a more present life. However, each of those schools are confined to their own strict guidelines. This course is not. I believe that every person is different and needs a unique style of meditation that works for them.
I have studied meditation and mindfulness for 20 years. Throughout that time, I took what I found to be the most useful parts of each school of meditation and wiped away the mystery. I combined my personal discoveries, and a blend of classic foundational techniques to create a new approach to the art of mindfulness.
In this downloadable 6 week audio course, I'll share an approach to meditation that allows you to learn what works best for you. Whether you're taking your first steps or are further down the path, this course is something you will grow with." - Cory Allen
About Allie X: Somewhere amidst the outer reaches of iconoclastic pop darling Allie X's mind, you'll find the limits of a surreal hamlet inspired by the East Coast's infamous playground of the pedigreed, Cape Cod. That said, it doesn't take long for all the overbearing, Americana-worshipping idyll to melt into a gloomy, grandiose fantasy world of Allie's creation.
A distinct departure from her previous effort — the irreverent, observational Super Sunset — this new writing is an intimate, healing journey focused inwards. Told through the perspective of character rooted in Allie's own reluctant reflections upon her teenage alienation, it's an invitation to recontextualize the banality of our shared suburban coming-of-age angst via wry romanticization and darkly-dreamlike production. To rethink ostracization and ennui as a vehicle to unite, rather than isolate, all of the anxiety-ridden outsiders.
"I was waiting for the right moment and place and maturity level where I could comfortably and accurately put these feelings into song," Allie says, before adding, "This sort of margin in time, and space helped me dive in, and explore some repressed feelings."
Interestingly enough, her new work was created within the span of few whirlwind weeks. A literal world away from the hook-driven writing rooms of Los Angeles. Thanks to the help of like-minded Swedish producer, Oscar Görres, and co-writer James Alan Ghaleb, lead single "Fresh Laundry" unfurled into a gaudily melancholic, whimsical encapsulation of the surreal world Allie always dreamed of belonging to.
Meanwhile, tracks like "Regulars" explores the struggle of a fish-out-of water forced to adhere to the conventional, while the Troye Sivan duet "Love Me Wrong" expounds upon these feelings — turning it toward the often fraught relationships with our family that we eventually end up internalizing.
A carefully constructed meditation on universal themes of identity and belonging, most importantly, this new work is also a declaration of the autonomy we have when it comes to redefining ourselves and our place in the world. Although, Allie herself may still be on a journey toward reconciling with her past, by allowing herself to continue exploring the margins of contemporary pop, she's ended up finding herself, at last, a little bit closer to home.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Her collaboration with Mitski (singer / songwriter) for their song "Susie Save Your Love"
Cognitive dissonance
Her writing process for her newest album, Cape God, which was inspired by the 2015 HBO documentary entitled "Heroin: Cape Cod USA" directed by Steven Okazaki
About Ron: Ron Hicks was born in Columbus, Ohio but spent most of his childhood growing up in the modest and friendly neighborhood of Park Hill in Denver, Colorado. Ron always knew he would be an artist. Ron's family later relocated back to Ohio where during high school he was awarded several awards, and honors for various art shows and competitions. His talent became obvious and noted throughout his high school career, and Ron was awarded a full scholarship to Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, OH. He later returned to Denver then subsequently earned a degree in Advertising Design. After college, Ron applied his degree, and natural talent to working for ad agencies, magazines, and as a freelance illustrator. He would soon realize his true passion. Ron's natural talent, and eye for beauty encouraged a shift in the direction of his style of painting.
"I see things very abstractly, so I think of myself as a painter who sees shape, value, edges and texture. It could be the most mundane thing to any passer-by, but I find great beauty in that. I can't imagine not painting...not creating. If I'm not painting, creating, and sharing my gift then what's the point?" - Ron Hicks
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The recent LA Art Show with his paintings on view at the Gallery 1261 booth
His early art inspiration as a child specifically from his mother
Starting a Saturday art program at the Columbus College of Art and Design in high school
Moving back to Denver to finish college, and a short-winded pursuit in advertising design before diving into his art career
An early mentorship that allowed him to tap into the "soul" of his art, and thoughts on developing an intuitive toolbox
Hicks' evolution of his art, and the abstract dialogue that comes through his paintings
Creating honesty in his art but leaving room for his viewers' interpretation of his works
Processing the traumas of thirty years of racial profiling
Internationally acclaimed, prominent contemporary artist and social media Influencer; Dan Lam is an artist based out of Texas, US. Lam's sculptural work expresses and plays with sensational dichotomies by combining unconventional materials, organic forms, and bright colors. With contrasting themes verging on beauty and grotesqueness at once, Lam's art provokes its viewers to ponder meaning and existence while inspiring feelings of familiarity and wonder. Curiosity, play, and fun are the foundation of where Lam's work begins. Her experimentation results in beautiful sculptures created with various materials such as foams, polyurethanes, resins, acrylics, and polymers, which defines her style. She has exhibited worldwide, and celebrity clients include Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, The Game, and Lily Aldridge. Notable art collectors, such as the Tisch family, have acquired her work. In addition, Lam has collaborated with prominent companies, including Facebook and Virgin, and renowned art producers, Meow Wolf. Her pieces have been featured in Architectural Digest, Travel and Leisure, and Forbes, amongst many other international media outlets.
Creating Your Own Creative Community with Ibarionex Perello @ The Candid Frame | AD 153
01 Apr 2020
00:55:46
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Ibarionex: Ibarionex Perello is a photographer, writer and educator. Since 2006, he has also served as the host, and producer of The Candid Frame photography podcast, which has featured hundreds of conversations with the world's best and established photographers. Guests have included Sam Abell, Maggie Steber, Eli Reed, Jay Maisel, Elliot Erwitt, Ruddy Roye, Dan Winters, Keith Carter and many more. Ibarionex has written hundreds of magazine articles on the subject of photography and has authored half a dozen books on the subject of photography including his most recent Making Photographs: Developing a Personal Visual Workflow.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
His podcast, "The Candid Frame"
Content with substance vs. content consumed to distract
Cerebral vs. technical vs. intuitive elements to creativity
Book: Henri Cartier-Bresson's "The Decisive Moment"
Finding comfortability in uncomfortable scenarios
Discussing the role of the interviewer
Ibarionex's photography and writing process
The importance of creating your own creative community
Podcast: Elvis Mitchell's "The Treatment"
Photographers: Joel Meyerowitz, Richard Avedon, Michelle Groskopf
Everything Happens For A Reason with Denna Thomsen | AD 152
29 Mar 2020
01:11:35
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Denna: Denna Thomsen grew up in Omaha Nebraska, later receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado State University. She moved to California in 2007 to pursue a professional dance career and gained a spot with Hysterica Dance Company, founded by Kitty McNamee. In 2012, Alma Ha'rel gave Denna her first break acting and dancing alongside Shia Labeouf, in Fjogur Piano by Sigur Ros. She soon became infatuated with the commercial side and later danced beside Madonna, David Bowie, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Florence + The Machine and SIA. With the rise of musical artist, SIA, in 2014, Denna began to assist Ryan Heffington on all future endeavors and more including Lorde, The OA, Kenzo Fashion Show, Mascots, and Homepod, directed by Spike Jonze. She has recently choreographed a scene from the new movie, Booksmart, and has been recognized for her work in the known Apple commercial, "SWAY." Denna will next be spotted as an actress alongside Finn Wolfhardt and Mackenzie Davis, in an Amblin Entertainment film called "The Turning", directed by Floria Sigismondi.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
How she found her love for dance and choreography
Applying the structure and discipline of her practice to navigate through the contemporary dance world, and life in general
Triggers for inspiration
Continuing a writing practice as a way to inform dance, and other aspects of creativity
Butoh Dance AKA The Dance of Darkness
Poor accreditation, and mistreatment of dancers in the entertainment industry
Challenges in sustainability that face contemporary dancers/choreographers
Pushing through fear to become what you were meant to be
Releasing tension through physical activity, and emotional vulnerability
Cultivating Wisdom Through Authentic Dialogue with Michael Phillip | AD 151
24 Mar 2020
01:13:04
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Michael:Michael Phillip is a writer, seeker, and wonder-dipping host of the Third Eye Drops podcast. In it, he melds minds with some of the planet's most interesting artists, scientists, philosophers, and consciousness explorers.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
The value of having a contemplative practice
Søren Kierkegaard's "Leaf of Faith"
Michael's first Ayahuasca experience
Ancient mystery schools, and revealing the mysteries of life and death
The Myer's Briggs Personality Test
"Awakening From The Meaning Crisis", a YouTube series by John Vervaeke whom is a psychology and cognitive science professor at University of Toronto
Addressing the COVID-19 crisis
The cultivation of wisdom through authentic dialogue