https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Nick: Born in 1985, artist Nick Runge grew up in Colorado. Coming from a creative family of professional artists, he was always interested in drawing and imagining ideas visually. Starting in 2004, he began thinking about art as a career and got the chance to begin small jobs in and out of the comic book industry. After 2006, he worked as an illustrator for various comic companies such as IDW, Dark Horse, and many others. While primarily making a living as a cover artist, he began painting more seriously and started exploring the world of film art and traditionally painted projects, doing various official and private commissions. These days he has stepped away from commercial properties, focusing exclusively on fine art and personal work using oils and watercolor.
As a portrait/figurative painter, Nick works from life as well as photography, describing his art as something close to “abstracted realism”, with an objective of expressing as much of the realistic human element of life as possible through a limited and often simplified approach to his rendering or brushwork, giving an illusion of realism while, at the same time, breaking shapes and form down enough to have a close balance with abstraction.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
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The reasons why he began his career as an artist in illustration
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Making the transition from being a professional illustrator to being a fine artist
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Steven Pressfield’s book, “The War of Art”
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Creating mental devices to help you clearly navigate though your career
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His experiences working in the comic book industry
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Commercial viability of analog and digital artworks
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Pitfalls of the American educational system
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The financial realities of being a working artist
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Art and design existing everywhere
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How the arts are supported and unsupported in America
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Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Apocalypse Now”
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The movie poster that Runge was commissioned to illustrate for the documentary, “The Death of Superman Lives”
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Ideologies about tribes and community
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AI creating artworks
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NOH/WAVE
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Art collectives
www.nohwaveacademy.com/nick-runge
https://www.instagram.com/nickvrunge/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Joseph: Joseph Lee is an actor and self-taught artist who studies faces and the emotions that inhabit them. Lee focuses on the parallel between external reality and internal process by manipulating everyday faces and objects through segmented brush strokes, color choice, and volume, converging them into a complete and balanced whole.
Show Notes:
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Joseph’s journey into acting
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Picking up a paintbrush as a reaction to his father’s passing
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Intuitively thinking with creating artworks
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Insecurities
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His role in the, Sundance Award Winning film, “Searching” (2018)
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Traveling to Korean on an acting job and navigating the social landscape as a foreigner
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Utilizing a gratitude journal in your daily practice
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Existential crises
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SCOPE Art Show 2018
https://www.instagram.com/joeyunlee/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Michael: Michael Shaw is an artist and podcast host & producer based in Los Angeles. While working as an artist and writing about art, in late 2011 he started The Conversation Art Podcast, a show that “goes behind the scenes and between the lines of the contemporary art worlds.” Inspired by his own experiences holding down a variety of jobs and projects over the years to support himself, and wanting to reach a wider audience than the niche of the art world, he created his 2nd podcast, How I Get By, to address concepts including day jobs, living on a wide spectrum of income levels and general work/life satisfaction. You can see his art at michaelshawstudio.com
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
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Why he started his podcast, “The Conversation: Art Podcast”
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Our experiences podcasting and our interactions with listeners
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Social experimentation
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Collaboration
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Seneca
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Obscure films
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The Italian Film, “The Best of Youth”
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The films, “Lady Bird”, “Manchester by the Sea”, and “Sorry To Bother You”
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Pop music and popular podcasts
The Conversation Art Podcast on iTunes
https://www.instagram.com/artistpodcast/
Linus Sandgren is a Oscar and Academy Award winning Swedish cinematographer best known for his work on the films La La Land (2016), First Man (2018), and American Hustle (2013).
www.artistdecoded.com
Isaac Bauman is a cinematographer and photographer based in Los Angeles.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Bauman talks about the latest feature film he worked on entitled “Bloodline”
- Counteracting comfortability in one’s art form
- Adapting under pressure and embracing resistance
- A lighting technique called “blue moonlight”
- Understanding human psychology for team communication on film sets
- Surviving as an artist
- Compromising one’s artistic vision to service a client’s commercial needs
- What it takes to make a good collaborative partnership
- Kesh and Bauman’s film project, “Controller”
- Building respect for the people you work with
- How Bauman got into photography
- Exploration being the cornerstone of the artistic journey
- The power of listening
- Dealing with our own demons
- Dealing with creative differences
www.artistdecoded.com
Tunde Adebimpe is a musician, actor, director, and visual artist best know for being the frontman of the band TV On The Radio.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The power of telling your personal story
- His solo exhibition at NOH/WAVE entitled, “The Full Catastrophe”, opening Oct 31st
- The importance of forgiving others
- Poisoning yourself with negative thoughts
- Tapping into the child-like self
- Clarity in having children
- Tunde growing up in Nigeria between the ages of 5 – 10
- Using journaling as a tool in your daily practice
- Revisiting ideas of the past
- The consciousness stream
- Parenting
- How Tunde navigates between creating with different artistic mediums
- Creative partnerships
- Settings expectations or not setting them at all
- The reason why he got into acting
- Relinquishing control of a project once you put it out into the world
- “The Square” directed by Ruben Östlund
- Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon”
www.artistdecoded.com
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Jordan: As an artist in the group BASECAMP, Jordan Reyes has released records on the label end via OWSLA/Atlantic & Independently Popular, while playing Bonnaroo, Osheaga and touring with Chvrches, Phantogram, and more. As producer, Jordan has had multiple cuts with blackbear, Mike Shinoda, KYLE, Donna Missal, Terror Jr, Wes Period, Doja Cat and many more. Currently, Jordan is developing a new artist project by name of bodyimage.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
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Psychedelics
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Synesthesia
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The awareness of subtle nuances and details in constructing music
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Reyes explains his time creating music with his group, Basecamp
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Having strength within one’s sensitivities
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The industrial and technological revolutions
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How physical activity can fuel a more efficient creative practice
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Religion vs. spirituality
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Shifts and evolutions in life
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Creating artwork within certain boundaries
https://www.instagram.com/j_____r____/
Rina Yang is a director of photography based in London. She grew up in a small city in Japan, where she studied still life and portrait painting.
Yang is a highly accomplished cinematographer who has worked with clients such as: Netflix, Nike, Vice, and Saatchi & Saatchi, and musicians including: Kendrick Lamar, FKA Twigs, Vince Staples, Charli XCX, and many more.
Instagram:
Mia Bergeron is a figurative oil painter that oscillates between classical and expressionistic painting. Rooted in her upbringing in New York City with continuous exposure to modern art, her paintings also reveal her choice to study classical painting in Florence, Italy under Charles H. Cecil in her twenties. Heavily influenced by historical artists such as Diego Velázquez, Titian, Anthony van Dyck and John Singer Sargent, her paintings are also shaped by current artists such as Alex Kanevsky, Ann Gale, and Adrian Ghenie.
Mia’s education was rooted in formal portraiture from life- she spent thousands of hours painting people and watching tweaks in eyebrows, mouths that shifted with fatigue, shoulders that grew heavy. These changes were minuscule, and yet were the markings and delineations of time. She is enamored with the nuance, variation, and subtlety that observation provides. Although narrative has been an undercurrent in Mia’s work for years, it is only recently, after being consumed with the purely visual tools she continues to discovered, that she has made it her focus.
Mia has been published numerous times in international magazines. Her paintings have placed repeatedly in both national and international competitions, notably in The Portrait Society of America’s International Portrait Competition (2013, 2015). She has participated in the traveling museum show “Women Painting Women”. She has also tried her hand as curator for the successful show “Unfurl” at Gallery 1261 in Denver in 2015. She has served as advanced painting adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and is a continuing instructor through Townsend Atelier, also in Chattanooga, where she resides.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- How Justin and Mia met
- Death of a Coworker
- The currency of respect
- How Mia got into figurative painting
- Mia growing up in NYC
- Introverted vs. extroverted tendencies
- How Mia got into oil painting
- An artist vs. a painter’s mindset
- Painting as a meditative practice
- Quitting painting then returning to it years later with a fresh perspective
- The necessity for a compulsion to create art
- The symptom of a true calling
- Work-a-holism and obsession
- “The Pool Filter Analogy”
- Addressing fear
- Transcending grief and fear
www.artistdecoded.com
Tobias Schliessler most recently lensed Ava Duvernay’s adaptation of A WRINKLE IN TIME for Disney, starring Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Reese Witherspoon.
Schliessler also recently shot Bill Condon’s visually stunning film BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, starring Emma Watson and Luke Evans. Condon and Schliessler first teamed up on the Academy Award winning film DREAMGIRLS, followed by THE FIFTH ESTATE, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and more recently, the beautifully shot MR. HOLMES, starring Ian McKellen.
Last year Schliessler lensed Peter Berg’s Boston Marathon drama PATRIOT’S DAY, starring Mark Wahlberg. Berg and Schliessler previously collaborated on a number of films including: the action/drama LONE SURVIVOR, also starring Mark Wahlberg; the sci-fi thriller BATTLESHIP; HANCOCK, starring Will Smith; the high school football drama FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS; and THE RUNDOWN, starring The Rock.
Other notable credits include Tony Scott’s crime thriller THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123; as well as Antoine Fuqua’s BAIT, starring Jamie Foxx.
A native of Germany, Schliessler studied cinematography at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. He began his career shooting documentaries, and then segued into independent features, television movies, music videos and commercials. Schliessler was honored by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) for his cinematography on Audi’s commercial WAKE UP in 2000, and Lincoln’s Financial spot DOCTOR in 2001. Both are now part of the permanent archives of The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film and Video in New York City. His commercial work also includes ads for such high end brands as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bank of America, Citibank , AT&T and Verizon.
Aisha Schliessler is a writer and director living in Los Angeles, California.
A third-generation filmmaker, life behind the camera is in her blood. She has worked across a wide range of projects including shorts, music videos and commercials.
Her short documentary, DOBLE 9, about four Cuban exiles connected through Miami’s Calle Ocho domino park, screened at multiple film festivals in 2016 including The Miami International Film Festival and the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Montana.
In 2017 she wrote and directed THE END, about a lonesome beauty and her unusual dinner date, which won the Audience Choice Award at the New York City Short Film Festival (NYC Shorts).
Most recently, Aisha wrote and directed the short film PASSING in collaboration with Zeiss lenses, which will premiere in 2018.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- How he got into cinematography
- Tobias’s father’s path into mountain climbing and documentarian filmmaking
- Rainer Werner Fassbinder (filmmaker)
- Robby Müller (Dutch cinematographer)
- Directors he’s worked with, Bill Condon and Peter Berg
- Pushing each other creatively in collaborative partnerships
- A film Tobias worked on called, “Friday Night Lights”
- His experiences on set
- Mentoring younger people entering the film industry
- Working on “Lone Survivor”
- The film, “The American Friend”
- The film, “The Square”
- Working with directors Peter Berg and Bill Condon
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Justin: Justin Daashuur Hopkins is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA. He is also the Co-Founder / Art Director of LA based art collective, NOH/WAVE.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Music
- The origin story of NOH/WAVE
- Justin’s introduction into illustrating and working as a professional illustrator at the age of 14
- Traditional educational systems
- Creative business partnerships
- The challenges of working with commercial clients
- Balancing out one’s ego
- Defining purpose in one’s life
- Cultural movements
- Joseph Campbell
- Justin and Yoshino’s childhood
- The film, “The Florida Project” by director Sean Baker
- “The Book of Five Rings” by Miyamoto Musashi
- “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter
- Robert Rodriguez and resourcefulness
- The tower metaphor
- Vasyl Lomachenko
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Aja: Aja Daashuur is a Los Angeles based Certified Intuitive & Transformational Life Coach (LPI), Spirit Guide Medium, Clairvoyant, Akashic Records Reader, Sound Bath Practitioner, Altar Consultant and founder of Spirit House Collective, an all women-identifying community group.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Growing up encountering spirits
- Depression
- Opening yourself up to creating more flow in your life
- Witnessing possessions
- Shifting your perspective of failures into lessons
- Protecting your energy
- Empaths
- Connecting with your spirit guides
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
Alexandre Souêtre, originally from Paris, is a LA-based creative director & visual artist.
Jesse Draxler is a multidisciplinary artist.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Souêtre Growing up in Paris
- Souêtre's beginnings in film which lead him to creative direction, design, and photography
- Souêtre moving to America for college
- How Draxler and Souêtre met and became collaborators
- Draxler’s process with working with photographers
- Skateboarding as an art form
- Setting up creative constraints to create artwork
- French cinema
- Filmmaker Gaspar Noé
- Gaspar Noé films, “Irreversible” and “Enter The Void”
- VR
- “The Book of Joan” by author Lidia Yuknavitch
- Alexandre’s book he’s writing
- Icelandic pop music including Samaris
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About VOWWS: VOWWS is an Australian Death-Pop duo based out of Los Angeles.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Creating and attaining goals
- Financial burdens of going to college
- Education in Australia
- Pitfalls of the American educational system
- Old school video games
- The story of how they met in college
- Celebrating death and western culture’s view on death
- Deathpop
- Genres being subjective
- Over conceptualizing art
- Touring
- Depression
Photos by Olivia Shove
In this podcast, we interview actor Martin Starr from the hit tv HBO comedy Silicon Valley.
We take a deep dive into topics such as: being recognized at hipster parties, seasonal depression, being a child of an actress, the future of pornography, bitcoin and human connection.
This episode was produced and co-hosted by Saman Kesh.
www.artistdecoded.com
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Ania: Ania Catherine is an artist and choreographer based in Los Angeles. Her work merges movement, film, and performance art and has been shown internationally at the British Film Institute, Art Basel Hong Kong, Peacock Theatre (London), LA Center for Digital Art, Agora Collective (Berlin), Forum des images (Paris), Dansmuseet (Stockholm), International Meeting on Screendance (Valencia, Spain), among others. She holds a master's degree from the London School of Economics, and through bodies explores the intersections of performance and her academic research in gender, sexuality, representation, and politics. In addition to her personal practice, she works internationally performing, choreographing, speaking, directing, and teaching.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Growing up in Orange County in California
- Gender and sexuality
- How “slow cinema” has influenced her work
- Films by Roy Anderson and Chantal Akerman
- Creating work that’s personal
- Misrepresentations of sexuality
- How she met her wife
- Surrounding yourself with people who project positive energy
www.instagram.com/aniacatherine/
@artistdecoded
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Mary: "How do we understand, connect with and react to traces of the metaphysical? My work is about becoming, a process that encompasses both doing and undoing; energy goes into my materials and then there is a natural or simulated process of destruction. Transformation is central to my practice: a metamorphosis that reveals the ruin and beauty of both the body and the psyche. With the intention of revealing layers and residual deterioration, I unravel, scratch, burn and peel parts of the work. I use many natural materials in my practice—particularly linen, sisal rope and dye—which exude a distinct smell and permeate the senses before the demanding visuality commands attention. This address to the olfactory helps to create an active environment rather than a static installation. My works, unlike the products of conventional fiber practices, bear traces of my hand—bits of imperfect or unfinished warp and weft—and the inexact results of hand-dyeing. Parts of the work are undone, unmade and unraveled, lending credence to their indeterminate nature. While the process of weaving, in its demanding repetition and methodical rhythm, is a contemplative endeavor typically exact in execution, the ruinous state of these works points to my interest in the limits of the physical and preoccupation with the ethereal.
I am fascinated by the connection between the physical and metaphysical, and, in this vein, I take ancient mythology, metamorphosis, ruination and entropy as inspirations in my work. Like ruins, my works are remnants of what was once whole; they are inscribed with traces of their previous life, death endured and the hereafter. My works embody these remnants that prefigure thought and feeling." - Mary Grisey
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Kindred spirits
- Her trajectory as an artist
- Finding her voice
- How a traumatic experience created a shift in the way she created art
- The relationship between creating artwork and meditating
- Breaking down mental systems
- Her spiritual journey
- Clairvoyance
- Her encounters with ghosts
- Working in the metaphysical realm
- How she got into tarot card reading
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Elly: Originally from Ottawa, Elly Smallwood graduated from OCAD University in 2011 and now works as an artist in Toronto. Her paintings are intensely personal, a visual exploration of her mind and body, and those of the people around her.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Her workflow
- The business of art
- Getting paid as an artist
- “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”
- “Nocturnal Animals”
- The importance of failure
- Her transition leaving Toronto to move to Ottawa
- Having a solid art community
- Understanding human anatomy for your art practice
- Conspiracy theories
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Nicole: Nicole Miglis is the singer / songwriter of the band Hundred Waters.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The origin story of Hundred Waters
- OWSLA
- The power of introverts and listening
- Language
- The feeling behind captivating artworks
- Their new album “Communicating”
- Nicole’s journey as a musician
- Choosing art as a career
- Turning your weaknesses into strengths
- Ideas surrounding femininity and masculinity
- Power in vulnerability
- The idea of self and others
- Standing the test of time