https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Cory: Cory Allen is an author, podcast host, meditation teacher, composer, and audio engineer. On his podcast The Astral Hustle, he finds ways for us to live with more wonder and less suffering by speaking with leading experts in mindfulness, neuroscience, music, and philosophy. The Astral Hustle has been downloaded millions of times and was featured by the New York Times. Cory has taught thousands of people how to meditate with clear and concise methods in his online meditation course Release Into Now. He is also a distinguished music producer who has released more than a dozen albums and engineered hundreds of records for other artists. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Allen's reflection on his childhood and his relationship with his family
- How Allen strives to learn from the people he surrounds himself with
- Thoughts on how humans react to one another and the complexities of life
- A discussion on Allen's book, “Now is the Way: An Unconventional Approach to Modern Mindfulness”, including the writing process, the method of presenting both simple and complex ideas in a resource for all levels of mindfulness practice, and the experience of it in audio form
- His journey as a teen studying western and eastern philosophy, meditation, psychedelics, and neuroscience
- His feelings on abandoning structure, authority, and systems
- The importance of eating well, and maintaining good health in the mindfulness journey
- Creating balance between his writing practice and his home life
https://www.instagram.com/heycoryallen/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Adam: Recurring themes in the work of Adam Lee are the act of pilgrimage, shelter and an itinerant, nomadic sense of home. Transmitted through a community of hermits, shawl-shod women and regalia-laden gentlefolk traversing deserts, forests and valleys or reposing in tabernacles or dreamed abodes, Lee’s practice ties together narratives of memory, imagination and transcendence. Through his works on linen and paper, Lee builds worlds where allegory and atmosphere coalesce to suggest a highly personal outlook informed by collective folklore and legend. These interior histories find their physical manifestation in Lee’s varied but self-contained technique, which is characterised by mercurial landscapes and a contemporary tenebrism. His oils on linen are a resonant amalgam of sanded back layers of pigment, highly saturated sfumato and a sensitively deployed portraiture, with his watercolour ink works evincing a command of shaping ethereal blooms into impressions of externalised thoughts, sensations and calls to a higher being.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Processing his experience from the 2017 residency at Glasshouse (in the South of France) and the exhibition "Monolith" that followed.
- Balancing intuition in creativity with years of academic research.
- Unbiased honesty in the work of children.
- The positive and negatives aspects of the inundation of information as a contemporary artist.
- How his thought process and work is changing
- Taking a more specific and personal approach to work.
- Using art to process and understand life's difficult experiences.
- The unavoidable implications of the influence of commerce on art.
https://www.instagram.com/adamlee79/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Alex: Alex Kanevsky was born in Russia in 1963. He studied mathematics at Vilnius University in Lithuania before coming to the United States. After his arrival to Philadelphia in 1983 he worked as Russian translator, illustrator at the Psychiatric Nursing Magazine and drew pictures for the telephone book advertisements. After attending PAFA (1989-93) and winning a Pew Fellowship (1997) he devoted himself to painting full time. Alex Kanevsky lives and works in New Hampshire. He has exhibited his work in the United States, Canada, Italy, UK, France and Ireland. His work is represented by Hollis Taggart in New York and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco.
Show Notes:
- 0:00:00 - Introduction
- 0:03:46 - Dividing Time Between Philadelphia and Rural New Hampshire
- 0:05:27 - Approach to Clarity Within His Work and Country Life
- 0:13:49 - Spending Time in Natural Environment vs "Curated" City Life
- 0:20:20 - Motive to Move Into The Countryside
- 0:26:20 - The Idea of Dying and Aging as an Artist
- 0:29:45 - Art Living on After Death and Trying to Give Up Perfection
- 0:32:10 - Open To Both Positive and Negative Influences
- 0:35:39 - Patrick Graham's Life-Altering Experience in Comparison to Kanevsky
- 0:43:42 - The Thrown Away Nature of Social Media and Hobbies
- 0:47:58 - Downtime and Mental Fortitude
- 0:51:39 - His Show Persephone and The Idea of Duality and Imperfection of Humanity
- 0:56:49 - His History of Painting and Uninterested in Technical Painting
- 1:07:34 - Story of Gerhard Richter and Cecily Brown as Painting as Product
- 1:14:22 - Advice to Artists
- 1:20:07 - Jonathan Glazer's film Under The Skin & Charlie Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York
- 1:25:51 - Wrap Up
https://www.instagram.com/somepaintings/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Joe: Joe Goddard is a British musician, songwriter, and DJ. He is best known as a member in the English synth-pop band Hot Chip, which he co-founded with Alexis Taylor. In 2007, he co-founded record label Greco-Roman, which has produced albums by artists such as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Disclosure. Goddard is also a member of electronica group The 2 Bears, and produced two solo albums, Harvest Festival (2009) and Electric Lines (2017).
https://www.instagram.com/hot.chip/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Alexis: Alexis Marshall is the singer of the band Daughters.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The making of Daughters’ “Less Sex” music video
- How their newest album, “You Won’t Get What You Want”, came together
- Catharsis and visceral connections to performing on stage for Alexis
- Alexis’s writing process
- Approaching life with gratitude and appreciation
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About David Kassan: Raw, poignant and profoundly honest, David Jon Kassan’s work aesthetically captures humanity in its true form. As an artist, Kassan acts as an empathetic intermediary between the subject he portrays and the viewer. More than simply replicating his subjects Kassan seeks to understand them. He seeks to capture the essence of those he paints, imbuing them with their own voice. They communicate with the viewer interpersonally and we see them through our own eyes. Our gaze transcends the picture plane and permeates deep into the subject’s psyche. We are moved by Kassan’s depictions, captivated by powerfully expressive hands, pensive faces, and flesh that appears warm to touch. Kassan’s portraits pulsate with the lives of his sitters – the weighty streams-of-consciousness of past experiences, feeling and introspection.This is what reality means to Kassan – preserving the realness of nuanced emotion and expression emanatingfrom the people he paints. Kassan’s technical mastery of oil paint combined with adept draftsmanship enables him to fluently represent what he sees. This is evident in the stunning flesh tones Kassan achieves. Transparent layers of oil paint are built up, forming an intricate lattice of veins, blood and skin. Through this light enters and is reflected back, infusing the subject with veridical luminosity. We can also sense movement and life beneath the undulating creases and folds of clothing. It is the artist’s intent to control the medium of oil paint so that it is not part of the viewer to subject equation. Kassan facilitates an interface between subject and viewer with which he is conscious not to interfere. The technical aspect of his work is thus a means to an end; an end rooted in the viewer’s experience.We find inherent contradictions in Kassan’s work as it oscillates between representation and transformation, reality and abstraction.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Kassan's journey creating paintings based on his interactions with Holocaust survivors, and his recent emotionally transcendent experience exhibiting these works at the Fisher Museum of Art at USC.
- How his early paintings of his family allowed him to develop a closer relationship with them.
- Wanting his students and followers to understand more of why he paints other than how he paints.
- The power of overcoming great trauma, and how it inspires Kassan artistically.
- Grappling with the issue of how people dehumanize one another.
- The balance between the emotional, and technical process of painting.
- Making artwork that doesn't necessarily follow trends, or the desires of a gallery.
- Working with the Shoah Foundation, and how they help genocide survivors.
https://www.instagram.com/davidkassan/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Antrese: Antrese Wood is an artist and the host of the Savvy Painter Podcast. The Savvy Painter features interviews with top artists who talk about their mindset, process, and gives tips and techniques to aspiring painters. Antrese paints and teaches online workshops from her home in Argentina.
A painter herself, Antrese left her job art directing video games at the Walt Disney Company to focus exclusively on her art. She lived in Argentina for six years where she created a Kickstarter campaign for her painting project, A Portrait of Argentina. She and her husband spent two years driving from the jungles to the glaciers as she painted her way across the country. Check out her paintings at antrese.com.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The journey that lead to Wood's pursuit in podcasting
- Graduating from the Art Center College of Design and soon after landing a position working for Disney, where she would work on and off at for twelve years
- Leading a "monastic" lifestyle and managing her painting practice between work before deciding to travel as much as possible and live freely
- Adventures in Wood's life including an exchange program in Honduras as a teen, a 90 day NOLS backpacking and kayaking expedition in Chile, and other trips around the world
- The importance of taking chances and how they can drastically alter your life
- How global communication makes it easier for Wood to live in a different country and still connect to family, friends, and other artists
- Living in Argentina and its financial benefits contrasted to living in Los Angeles
- Acknowledging her tendency towards people pleasing and having the confidence to follow her own desires and life path
https://www.instagram.com/savvypainterpodcast/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Hollis: Hollis Heichemer was born in Binghamton, New York and now currently lives and works in New Hampshire. Heichemer’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Hollis Taggart Galleries and J. Cacciola Gallery in New York, and Gross McCleaf Gallery and Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia . Hollis has participated in a wide range of group exhibitions, including most recently at Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco. She received her BS from Ohio University and her MA at Seton Hall University.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- How Heichemer creates experience, connectivity, and insight in her abstract works
- Spending time outside, and how her experiences in nature inspire her work in the studio
- How physical activity is a big part of Heichemer's life
- Reflecting on taking art classes as a child and choosing not to pursue art school
- Her marriage to fellow artist, Alex Kanevsky, and living in the country
- How art serves as a means to express all of her being and past experiences
- Finding other joys in life through reading and cooking
- How Heichemer maintains a sort of separation between herself and technology
https://www.instagram.com/hahike/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Maja: Maja Ruznic, a prolific and active artist, is primarily a painter, a storyteller who conjures form and narrative from ground up mineral, smeared oil, and stained canvas. Born in Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1983, Ruznic immigrated to the United States with her family in 1995, settling on the West Coast where she eventually went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley, later receiving an MFA from the California College of Arts. Ruznic’s often-quoted biography – a refugee who escaped the Bosnian War – is only the beginning of her journey. Ruznic’s vivid paintings speak for themselves, depicting figures that seem to emerge from the caverns of human history, from within their own supports, and somehow from within the viewer’s own recollections. These paintings breach something intrinsically human and Ruznic guides us deftly with dark humor and complex representations, not dissimilar to Werner Herzog’s wry, but poignant 3-D documentary depicting the oldest painted images in the world. Ruznic has exhibited internationally and her work has been written about extensively, most notably in ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings, including the cover as selected by curator Anne Ellegood. In 2018, Ruznic was a recipient of the Hopper Prize and in 2019, Ruznic’s painting “Azmira’s Daughters” was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art. In 2020, she has upcoming solo shows with Conduit Gallery in Dallas, TX and Hales Gallery in London.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Practicing “Is-ness”
- Maja moving to Roswell, NM
- Intaking artwork at a subconscious level
- Recognizing and healing from pain and trauma
- Maja growing up in Bosnia in various refuge camps
https://www.instagram.com/majaruz/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Josh: Josh Peck is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and YouTube personality. Peck began his career as a child actor in the late 90s and early 2000s, and had an early role on The Amanda Show from 2000 to 2002. Peck rose to prominence for the role of Josh Nichols alongside Drake Bell's character in the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007, and in its two television films in 2006 and 2008.
He then acted in films such as Mean Creek (2004), Drillbit Taylor (2008), The Wackness (2008), ATM (2012), Red Dawn (2012), Battle of the Year (2013), Danny Collins (2015), and Take the 10 (2017). Peck provided the voice of Eddie in the Ice Age franchise since Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), and voiced Casey Jones in the Nickelodeon animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012–2017). He also starred with John Stamos in the Fox comedy series Grandfathered (2015–2016). In 2017, Peck started a comedic lifestyle YouTube channel, Shua Vlogs, featuring David Dobrik and his wife Paige O'Brien.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Peck’s early life moving from New York to LA to pursue his career as an actor.
- His reflection on acting for Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh and breaking the mold as a “kid actor”
- Growing into his career in films such as Mean Creek, The Wackness, and Red Dawn.
- Kesh’s director/ actor relationship with Peck on his recent film, and Peck’s need for clear communication in such a relationship.
- Following an almost predestined path of the arts through the support system his single mother provided for him as a child.
- Expanding his skill in acting by still attending acting classes.
- Finding different means of supporting himself and his family independent acting through branding platforms such as Vine, YouTube, and Instagram.
- Peck’s podcast, Curious, and his love for interviews and having conversations with other creatives.
https://www.instagram.com/shuapeck/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Josh: Joshua Hagler lived and worked in San Francisco and then Los Angeles for fifteen years before moving to rural New Mexico in late 2017 as a grant recipient of the year-long Roswell Artist in Residence Program. He was born at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho in 1979 and is a first-generation college graduate with a visual communications degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Having not attended an art school or received an MFA, Hagler refers to himself as a working class artist. Not a stranger to class bias in the art world, self-directed research and travel has underpinned Hagler’s career and is essential to how the artist integrates creative influences with his life experience.
While most of Hagler’s early work responded directly to a difficult past within a variety of religious groups and their unspoken implications for the artist and his family, the later work has sought to understand religion in a deeper way. To Hagler’s mind, one finds the seeds of religion in every facet of culture, even, and, perhaps especially, among the so-called secular realms. Religion, for Hagler, is not approached in the pejorative but in a state of acceptance that perhaps it’s through the religious structures inherent in our shared languages and cultures that we access what makes us most human, for better and for worse.
Currently, he is hard at work in the studio preparing for his first U.K. solo exhibition with Unit London. In “Chimera,” Hagler presents a body of new paintings that attempt to dig beneath various forms of loud political language, including censorship, for clues on how the ubiquity of groupthink informs populist world views on both ends of the spectrum. The artist, in practice, hopes to work into the “noise” to exhume something Other in the physical manner in which the work is made.
2018 saw two museum shows at the Brand Library and Art Center in Los Angeles and the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico entitled “The River Lethe” and “Love Letters to the Poorly Regarded” respectively. He has exhibited paintings, sculpture, video, and animation in galleries and museums in North and South America, Europe, and Australia, including a long list of solo exhibitions. Reviews and features about the work have appeared in a variety of publications and media outlets in the U.S. and Europe.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Hagler's move to Roswell, NM
- Finding more financial freedoms to make art without worry
- His former Christian upbringing and his current art practice
- Hagler's recent show “Chimera” @ Unit London, and its relation to process and collaboration
- On being a heavy reader, and the impact specific authors have had on him
- A discussion on the spiritual experience that exists in the studio, and surpassing the basics of technical expertise into an emotional connection
- The discipline of taking on multiple shows, and how it left Hagler with little time to premeditate his art to create better works
- His recent two-person show in LA that expresses the feeling of loss based on a six-line W.S. Merwin poem
- How artists can become inundated by the commercial, and political art market
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Daniel: Daniel Martin (1982) lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. In his current work he searches for the transmutational properties of matter. The portraits and sculptures do not have a definite form and posses different realities on how they can be perceived. In order to come to new forms Daniel cuts up paintings, finds things on the street and uses creations made by others. The loose elements from these endeavors are used as disjointed brushstrokes that are reassembled in coherent shapes again, creating an object which holds no truth in shape.
His work has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include, the national museum of revolution, Cuba; Duo Phillip Akkerman, Sis Josip Gallery, Den Haag; Havana Biënnale (collaboration with Karang (Karina Alonso); Forma prima, El pez soluble Gallery, Mexico; Bloom, Booth Gallery, New York.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Martin's early childhood experiences growing up in the Netherlands
- His initial career working commercially in computer graphics and his transition into fine art as a full time career
- Martin's range of sculpting both digitally and physically and how the two mediums intertwine
- How Martin's shared art studio space, The Plant, benefits him creatively and the power of bringing online artistic relationships to real life
- Martin's new project, 1606 Residency, in Leiden he's developed with Paintguide and the importance of connecting art collectives globally
- Finding ways to sustain and raise money to support his projects
- Removing the gallery system by means of giving power to the artist
- How goals function only as a journey to bring Martin to the next big thing
https://www.instagram.com/daniel_martin_art/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Mia: Mia Bergeron is a contemporary female oil painter focused on the dualism of everyday scenes. Rooted in her upbringing in New York City with continuous exposure to modern art at a young age, her paintings also reveal her choice to study classical painting in Florence, Italy. Throughout her work, influences of both contemporary and historical ideas can be seen, whether rooted by her choice of subjects or the exploratory nature of the tools she employs. Her work seeks to show the nebulous aspects of being human, often choosing to pose a question rather than pursue an answer.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Expanding the definitions of unconditional love.
- Being grateful and observant of personal obstacles as the first step of engagement / change.
- Her experience with an absence of internal monologue and a heightened sense of physical awareness.
- Approaching religion as mythology and stories of self.
- How humans use religion and mythology to rationalize evil and condone immoral action.
- Her personal way separating from academic and institutional modes of creation while trying to find her personal creative voice.
- Engaging with art (and people) in person instead of through Instagram and other readily accessible forms of e-media.
- The craving that human beings have for real connection vs. the illusion of the connection through social media. Disregarding the need for a very natural “tribe mentality.”
- Her personal triggers for anxiety and her methods of reestablishing her mind-body connection when anxiety hits.
- Breaking down overwhelming tasks both in and outside artistic practice.
https://www.instagram.com/miabergeron/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Christian: Christian Rex van Minnen was born in Providence, RI in 1980 and received his BA from Regis University, Denver in 2002. He has exhibited throughout the US and internationally and was recently awarded an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, CO (Fall, 2017).
Recent exhibitions include con-figuration, a group exhibit at Postmasters, NY, Juxtapoz x Superflat, co-curated by Takashi Murakami & Evan Pricco at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada and Enantiodromia a solo show at Gallery Poulsen in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Public Collections include: Denver Art Museum, Djurhuus Collection, The Christine & Andy Hall Collection, Colección Solo, and the Richard B. Sachs Collection. van Minnen currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Van Minnen's early experiences making art as a child and how his personal experiences developed his mentality towards art
- A discussion on automatic drawing and mark-making with figuration
- Van Minnen's inspiration ranging from Titian to the Dutch Golden Age to Kandinsky (Book: Concerning the Spiritual in Art)
- Developing a connection with art through materials and technique, and also the connection of van Minnen's Dutch heritage
- Reflecting on his recent book, a monograph of the past fifteen years of his artwork.
- A look into van Minnen's painting process and technique
- A conversation on ego, belief, and knowing oneself, specifically touching on paths of transcendence noted in “The Devil's of Loudun” by Aldous Huxley
- A fascination with tattoos and how they've entered van Minnen's work
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Johan: Born in 1959, Johan Van Mullem lives and works in Belgium.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- His beginnings in discovering his art practice
- His background studying architecture in university
- How various day jobs in and outside architecture impacted his art practice
- His approach to painting and creative process
- His interpretation of the balance between happiness and struggle
- The nuances of developing ones self through physical activities
- Painting as a form of meditation
- The benefits of consistently having a young mindset and the power of positivity
- Addressing problems within your personal life when they arise
- Intention of utilizing one’s energy
https://www.instagram.com/johanvanmullem/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Zoey: Zoey Frank (b. 1987, Boulder, CO) received her MFA in painting from Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California after studying for four years with Juliette Aristides in the Classical Atelier at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, Washington. She is represented by Danese/Corey Gallery in New York City, and Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam. She has received numerous honors and awards, including three Elizabeth Greenshields grants, the Avigdor Arikha Memorial International Residency Scholarship, the Artist’s Magazine All Media Competition Grand Prize of 2012, the Hudson River Fellowship in 2012, and scholarships from the Albert K. Murray Foundation, the Stacey Foundation, and the Art Renewal Center. Her work has been featured in publications such as Fine Art Connoisseur, American Art Collector, the International Artist Magazine, Artist’s Magazine, and Southwest Art. She lives and works in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Topics Discussed In This Podcast:
- Frank's first love of Renaissance paintings and technical beauty
- Using a collaboration with materials and experimenting with process
- Creating artworks that are unique and personal by painting mundane objects that focus less on the subject and more on the technical quality
- Frank's ability to approach paintings of the same subject with different sets of problems to solve
- Refueling her creative energy by traveling, looking at art, and talking to other artists
- The importance of maintaining routines to create balance and making time for the business aspect of art
- The quality of working observationally from an unplanned still life
- Frank's persistence with applying and getting rejected for art opportunities
https://www.instagram.com/zoeyfrank/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
AD Non-Weekly Round Up #6 with Yoshino and AD co-host Saman Kesh.
Topics Discussed:
- ADHD, creativity, and distraction.
- Media ingestion for education vs. media ingestion for enjoyment
- Art vs. commerce
- Experiencing the loss of a loved one
www.artistdecoded.com
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Yumi: YUMI SAKUGAWA is an Ignatz Awards nominated comic book artist and the author of I THINK I AM IN FRIEND-LOVE WITH YOU and YOUR ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BECOMING ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE. Her comics have also appeared in The Believer, Bitch, the Best American NonRequired Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. She has also exhibited multimedia installations at the Japanese American National Museum and the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building. A graduate from the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in Los Angeles.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Drawing, writing, meditation, performance art, and engagement in multiple creative disciplines as an artistic practice and career.
- Being an extroverted introvert or an “ambivert”.
- Growing up as an Asian American student in both American and Japanese academic systems.
- Stream of consciousness and dream logic.
- Using meditation to supplement her mental health.
- How her meditation surfaces in her work visually.
- Rediscovering “fun” in the creative process.
- Using humor as a vehicle to explore and express darker subject matter.
- The importance of being a female Asian American artist under the projective narratives of both American and Asian patriarchy.
- The fetishization of Asian American artists and women.
- Her part in helping other Asian American woman artists achieve visibility.
- Mental health, personal boundaries, and keeping a balance in her personal relationships and art practice.
- Giving herself permission to take the time needed to slow down in order to be creative.
https://www.instagram.com/yumisakugawa/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Nikolaus: Nikolaus Summerer is a German Director of Photography based in Berlin. He is most well known for his award winning cinematography on the Netflix hit series DARK. He lensed the first two seasons as sole Cinematographer, and is currently busy filming the third and final season.
DARK is the most recent of several projects Nikolaus has filmed with director and showrunner Baran bo Odar; a relationship stretching back to their Munich film school days. Following their graduate film “Unter der Sonne” (Under The Sun) they collaborated on two feature films (The Silence and Who Am I) before DARK. “Who Am I” earned Nikolaus the German Cinematography Award, after which he filmed “The Siege of Jadotville”, starring Jamie Dornan and Mark Strong.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Personal evolution as a creative
- DARK Season 1 vs. Season 2
- His collaborative partnership with director, Baran bo Odar
- Summerer’s journey as a cinematographer
Nikolaus Summerer is a German Director of Photography based in Berlin. He is most well known for his award winning cinematography on the Netflix hit series DARK. He lensed the first two seasons as sole Cinematographer, and is currently busy filming the third and final season.
DARK is the most recent of several projects Nikolaus has filmed with director and showrunner Baran bo Odar; a relationship stretching back to their Munich film school days. Following their graduate film “Unter der Sonne” (Under The Sun) they collaborated on two feature films (The Silence and Who Am I) before DARK. “Who Am I” earned Nikolaus the German Cinematography Award, after which he filmed “The Siege of Jadotville”, starring Jamie Dornan and Mark Strong.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Dark (Season 1)
- How Nikolaus initially got into cinematography
- When he met Baran bo Odar (Director of Dark) in film school
- Nikolaus’s approach to working with directors
- His first feature film, Under The Sun (2006)
- The future of watching films in the cinema
- Emotional vs. cerebral films
www.artistdecoded.com
Jerry Hsu is an American professional skateboarder and photographer.
His newest photography book entitled “The Beautiful Flower Is The World”, depicts his fascination with life’s absurdities and showcases Hsu’s humorous approach to image making.
Show Notes:
- Introduction (00:00)
- When Yoshino challenged Hsu to a Game of S-K-A-T-E (02:43)
- Stories Growing up in San Jose, CA (04:43)
- “Skate Vision” and Photography (08:02)
- Choosing Skating as a Living and the Conflict of Deals (17:46)
- His new book, “The Beautiful Flower Is The World” & His blog, “Nazi Gold” (22:17)
- Story of Mass Shooting Insurance and Real Unbelievably Images (30:32)
- How Jerry Got into Photography (32:35)
- Impact of Films and Ethics of AI - Ex Machina (Dir. Alex Garland), Generation Wealth (Dir. Lauren Greenfield), Her (Dir. Spike Jonze) (39:40)
- Skateboard Culture & Being A Child of Immigrates (50:36)
- Hsu’s Skateboarding Career VS Family's Wishes (55:10)
- Black Swan (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) & Imperfection as the Perfect Skateboard Film (1:01:06)
- The Influence of Fellow Skateboarders: Louie Barletta, Ed Templeton, Marc Johnson (1:02:58)
- Finding Like-Minded People and Danger of Confirmation Bias (1:07:33)
- The Delusional Reality of Fame and Creativity (1:11:08)
- Injuries From Skateboarding (1:14:27)
- Psychedelics Helped Change Perspective (1:17:02)
- Advice to Artists (1:18:49)
- Wrap Up (1:31:55)
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Paul: Paul Cristina was born in Cleveland, OH in August of 1983. Cristina’s work focuses on combining disparate aesthetics through the experimentation of various styles and mediums, while using drawing as a primary foundation for his development. He currently lives and works in South Carolina.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The importance of having wholesome and creative relationships
- Paul getting his footing as a creative without a support community
- Working hourly wage jobs that took away from art as a full time practice
- Cristina's original pursuit of music
- How being a paramedic taught Cristina to maintain a presence of confidence and composure in all aspects of life
- Cristina's evolution from drawing with pen in sketchbooks to mixed media on large scale canvases
- Robert Rauschenberg's early influence on Cristina
- Turning points in Cristina's life that pushed him towards art
- Drawing both from imagination and from a deliberate effort to get better at drawing
https://www.instagram.com/paul_cristina/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
AD Non-Weekly Round Up #6 with Yoshino and guest John Wentz
Topics Discussed:
- “The Plant” an artist collective and residency based in The Netherlands co-founded by artist Daniel Martin
- Pondering life lessons
- Trying to be more positive
- Unconditional Love
- Utilizing gratitude in your daily practice
- Using organizational apps such as Google Keep, Evernote, Notion, and Trello in your daily practice
- Books: Mastery of Self and The Four Agreements
- Films, Documentaries, TV Shows: Brightburn, The Great Hack, Rashomon, Luce, Swamp Thing, Hereditary, Rosemary’s Baby
- Philosophers: Jean Baudrillard and Jean-François Lyotard
www.artistdecoded.com
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Marie: Marie Tomanova, born in former Czechoslovakia, Tomanova grew up in a small border town in South Moravia. She received BFA in Studio Art from Masaryk University in 2007 and MFA in Painting from Faculty of Fine Arts at University of Technology, Czech Republic in 2010. After finishing her studies she left to United States and currently lives and works in NYC.
Since then her work has changed dramatically in approach, mediums, and themes. She has been dealing with issues of displacement, identity, inclusivity, gender, and sexuality through photography and video in her current two main projects: photo-based Self-portraits, in which she address the issue of displacement and finding place in the American landscape and Young American, which was released as a solo show at Czech Center New York (2018) and addresses issues of displacement, belonging and fitting into the American landscape in a social aspect.
Paradigm Publishing will publish her first monograph Young American, with introduction by Ryan McGinley, in Spring 2019. A documentary following Marie’s journey is in making by Academy Award (student) winning director Marie Dvořáková and will be released in 2020. Young American will be exhibited at Academia Film Olomouc in April 2019 (Czech) and Pragovka Gallery in Prague in October 2019 (Czech).
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- How Marie met and started working with, photographer, Ryan McGinley
- Her experiences living and growing up in Czechoslovakia
- Her first experiences in an American grocery store and eating corn dogs for the first time
- How Marie started studying painting in university before she found her love for photography years later
- Her book, “Young American”
- Photographer: Francesca Woodman
https://www.instagram.com/marietomanova/
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Julius: Julius Onah was born on February 10, 1983 in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. He is a producer and director, known for The Girl Is In Trouble (2015) and Luce (2019).
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Onah’s feature film that just launched entitled, Luce.
- How he started working with writer and collaborative partner, J.C. Lee
- Creating in isolation
- Tapping into the sub-conscious state of mind through physical activities
- Clarity of vision and intentionality
- Creating and pitching the right amount of controlled chaos
- Movies and Documentaries discussed: The Matrix, The Great Hack, Social_Animals, Jawline
- Writers discussed: Marshall Mcluhan and Tennessee Williams
- Akira Kurosawa (Director)