AD 262 | John Wentz
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
John Wentz is a contemporary artist whose work is an exploration of process and technique. Working within the classical idiom of the human figure, his goal is to reduce and simplify the image to its core fundamentals: composition, color, and mark-making. Paint application and brush strokes are broad and simplified as a means to connect and convey these ideas to the viewer with an abstract sensibility. John was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His interest in art began at the age of 6 when he first discovered Batman and Spiderman comic books. After years of copying comics...
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AD 261 | Tim Bettinson (Vancouver Sleep Clinic)
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Tim Bettinson is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter and producer most recognized for creating and living behind the lustful, ambient guise of Vancouver Sleep Clinic. Across his catalogue, elements of anthemic indie rock, intimate R&B, and sophisticated folk provide a sweeping film soundtrack for Bettinson’s gentle vocal and expansive storytelling. Emerging from his native Brisbane, Australia on the strength of a series of singles including “Someone To Stay," “Middle of Nowhere," “The Wire,” and the bedroom-produced viral cover of “As It Was," Tim now roams the world with a laptop...
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AD 260 | Saman Kesh
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Iranian-American filmmaker Saman Kesh has the most Vimeo staff picks, ever. He attributes this accolade to excessive consumption of rocket fuel and a knack for combining the human experience with a healthy dose of controlled chaos. After his music videos won him YDA Silver at Cannes and two Best Video at SXSW, his foray into advertising was an epic international Superbowl spot for Taco Bell. Since then, he has worked with major brands like Zoom, Google, Citibank, Uber, and most recently picked up a handful of Clio awards for his work with Toyota and Nintendo. Saman has written and directed...
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AD 259 | Daniele Bolelli
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Daniele Bolelli is a writer, martial artist, university professor, and podcaster. He was born in Italy and currently lives in Los Angeles. Topics discussed in this episode: Daniele’s podcasts History on Fire and The Drunken Taoist (00:05:55) Daniele’s writing practice (00:08:51) Family and navigating personal struggles (00:15:03) The origin of Daniele’s passion for history (00:30:59) Reflections on legacy (00:35:02) Unpacking success, values, and the nature of quality (00:40:46) The complexities of meritocracy (00:53:32) Discussing personal values (01:08:19) Thoughts on the...
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Photo Roulette | Yoshinocast #15
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Yoshino’s essay “Photo Roulette” can be read at . Yoshino’s Links:
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AD 258 | Wesley Stringer
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Wesley Stringer (b. 1985) was born in Oklahoma City and has worked as a photographer for the past 13 years. Stringer began photographing while a BFA student at the University of Oklahoma. His practice is concerned with the natural environment, both in its untouched state, as well as how it relates to the spaces people occupy. The printed image is as important to Stringer’s work as the physical and textural presence: his photographs frequently take the shape of handmade books or boxes. In addition, the artist prints many of his photographs on translucent gampi paper and mounts them by hand to...
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AD 257 | James “Munky” Shaffer (Korn + Venera)
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
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...
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AD 256 | Paul Yoon
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
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.
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AD 255 | Johan Van Mullem
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
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...
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AD 254 | Jacqueline Castel
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
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,...
info_outlineThe long arc of Joshua Hagler's oeuvre, with its focus on painting, could be traced by its slow, physical and conceptual disintegration - of it's imagery, politics, art historical underpinnings, and philosophical erudition - from its early pictorial messaging to a need, in more recent years, for direct physical experience of the numinous. Material layering is at the core of Hagler's work, combining a range of self-developed painting processes which force a loss of skilled control, making for radical pictorial transformation. The works situates itself in the paradox of absence and presence, the internal and external, and the sacred and profane.
Whatever research occurs with regard to issues such as mass shooting, wildfires, and religiosity in America, only demonstrates itself to the degree that it's relevant to the artist's own background and direct life experience. The personal is thus foregrounded and given preference over academic defenses, which are subverted at every opportunity. Hagler's distinct signature manages to span paintings both physically slight and vast, figurative and abstract. The work is intentional about avoiding redundancy common in an era of self-conscious branding, preferring endless evolution, while seeking to ground itself in deeper authenticity over time.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- The Tenets of Nihil
- Exile & Absence (The Archaic Brother) - The first tenet of Nihil
- The reasons why Josh moved from California to New Mexico in 2017
- Paradoxes
- Private vs. public conversations
- Arvo Pärt’s compositional style, “tintinnabuli”
- Josh’s observations in abandoned spaces throughout New Mexico
- Believing in consciousness
- Axis Mundi
- Patterns emerging out of observations
- The Archaic Brother
- How being a father has given him a deeper meaning and appreciation for life
- The role meditation has played in his life
Artists Mentioned:
- Ruben Östlund (Director)
- Arvo Pärt (Composer)
- Mark Rothko (Painter)
- Aja Daashuur (Medium)
Books Mentioned:
- The Daemon (Anthony Peake)
- The Seat of the Soul (Gary Zukav)
Films Mentioned:
- The Square (2017)
- Force Majeure (2014)