AD 282 | Roy Dean | “A Constant Journey Into Mastery”
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Roy Dean is a martial artist, filmmaker, and creative storyteller whose work bridges the worlds of combat and art. A black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Roy Harris, Roy is known for his elegant approach to movement, mastery, and self-expression. Through his films, writings, and instruction, he reveals the artistry within discipline—showing how the resistance of training can refine both technique and character. His latest projects continue to explore the intersection of creativity, philosophy, and the martial path. Topics Discussed In This Episode: Roy’s origin story in martial arts...
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AD 281 | Æmen Ededéen | "On Aletheia House and Nihil"
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Æmen Ededéen lived and worked in San Francisco and then Los Angeles for fifteen years before moving to Roswell, New Mexico in 2018 as a grant recipient of the year-long Roswell Artist in Residence Program. He and his wife, the artist Maja Ruznic, have since made New Mexico home and have recently welcomed their first child, a daughter, into the world. Hagler 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. Self-directed research and travel has underpinned...
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AD 280 | Manuel Mathieu | "Bury Your Masters"
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Manuel Mathieu (b. 1986) is a multi-disciplinary artist, working with painting, ceramics and installation. His work investigates themes of historical violence, erasure and cultural approaches to physicality, nature and spiritual legacy. Mathieu’s interests are partially informed from his upbringing in Haiti, and his experience emigrating to Montréal at the age of 19. Freely operating in between and borrowing from numerous historical influences and traditions, Mathieu aims to find meaning through a spiritual or asemic mode of apparition. Mathieu has developed a distinctive abstract visual...
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AD 279 | Daniel Segrove | “Following The Truest Path”
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
"I am a 34-year-old artist living and working in San Francisco, California. My work focuses on my perspective on life, identity, and empathy. I paint and draw people who are close to me, or if they have a story I can relate too. My style consists of meticulous studies of anatomy and form, as well as pieces that explore a more emotional and expressive theme. I have shown in galleries both across the United States and internationally." - Daniel Segrove Topics Discussed In This Episode: Segrove and Yoshino talk about modern technology and how it affects artists (00:02:26) Living peacefully and...
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AD 278 | Ray Barbee
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Ray Barbee is an American skateboarder, musician, and photographer originally from San Jose, California. He started skateboarding in 1984, when he was in seventh grade, and has grown to become one of the most iconic skateboarders of his generation. His passion and do-it-yourself attitude, which distinguish him as a musician and as a skateboarder, also define his photography. He has been developing his own photos for the last sixteen years. Rarely without his Leica M6, Ray brings the same unique perspective to the art of black and white film photography that he has brought to skateboarding....
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AD 277 | Yulia Bas
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Yulia Bas’s artwork explores the fragmentation of contemporary individuality, healing, and the body as a somatic memory tool. Across her paintings, sculptures, and installations, equilibrating between figuration and abstraction, Yulia employs unconventional materials to explore her perception of physical and mental thresholds, transitional states, and subjective wholeness. Guided by her personal journey of transformation through body therapy and meditation as well as her immigrant background, Yulia's work embodies her experience of multiplicity of self. She searches for ways to show the...
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AD 276 | Saman Kesh
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Iranian-American director and writer 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. Saman gained recognition with popular music videos like Cinnamon Chasers: Luv Deluxe (which won ‘Best Video’ at SXSW), Kygo: Stole The Show and Basement Jaxx: Never Say Never, along with videos for Calvin Harris, Ed Sheeran, and Placebo. He has also directed award-winning commercials for major brands like Zoom, Google, Uber, Toyota and Nintendo. Saman...
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AD 275 | Tomas Watson
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Tomas Watson (b.1971) is a British artist who has lived and worked in Greece since 1994. He studied at the Slade School of Art in London. In 1998, he won the BP Portrait Award and was subsequently commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint the author John Fowles. This portrait is in their permanent collection. He is represented by the Jill George Gallery in London () and Accesso Galleria in Tuscany () Topics Discussed In This Episode: Tomas recounts where his artistic journey began (00:02:11) The importance of mentorship (00:07:46) Tomas's experiences at Slade...
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AD 274 | Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Pasqual Gutierrez is a writer, director and actor. Sundance 2025 Comedy “Serious People” was his debut into feature filmmaking alongside veteran documentary filmmaker Ben Mullinkosson who co-wrote and directed. Gutierrez is also 1/2 of music video directing duo CLIQUA who has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry including The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Rosalia, Madonna, and more. Gutierrez is developing his second feature, a sequel to Serious People. Ben Mullinkosson was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and trained in directing at Chapman University. After graduating Ben...
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AD 273 | Shuchi Talati
Artist Decoded by Yoshino
Shuchi Talati is a filmmaker from India whose work challenges dominant narratives around gender, sexuality, and South Asian identity. Her feature film, Girls Will Be Girls, premiered at Sundance where it won an Audience Award and a Special Jury Award. Shuchi was a Gotham Awards Breakthrough Director nominee and a John Cassavetes Award nominee at the Spirit Awards. During development, Girls was supported by the Aide Aux Cinémas du Monde and Sørfond grants, Gotham Week, Berlinale Project Market and Script Station, and Cine Qua Non Script Lab. Shuchi’s short film, A Period Piece, was...
info_outlineJia Sung is a Singaporean Chinese artist and educator whose practice spans painting, artist books, textiles, printmaking, writing, and translation. Drawing on motifs from Chinese mythology and Buddhist iconography, Sung uses the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert conventional archetypes of femininity, queerness and otherness. Her recent work explores threads of ecofeminism, ethnoecology, the ecological capacities of the body, invasive species as family, and the potentials of collective and constant human transformation through interspecies dynamics. Her approach draws from that of the Chinese zhiguai tradition, that genre of ‘strange tales’ cannot be translated directly through the lens of horror. The supernatural, the monstrous, the spiritual, seep into the tidy confines of ordinary existence, often humorous, arbitrary, smearing at the boundaries of our reality and then slinking away just as rapidly. Here is shapeshifter, here is trickster, things that inhabit liminal space and refuse to be held in place or form; the profane invades the interior, wilderness enters the domestic space, phenomena defy causation and morality, creature refutes taxonomy.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Jia’s childhood, early influences, and why she chose to dedicate her life to the arts (00:06:14)
- Formative books, films, and mythologies for Jia, Jennifer, and Yoshino (00:08:05)
- Art as a lifestyle and sketching/journaling as a form of expression (00:15:52)
- Jia explains her experiences going to RISD (00:17:03)
- Teaching art and guiding students – Jia shares her approach to teaching, focusing on personal expression over technique (00:18:46)
- Returning to unfinished work (00:22:42)
- Balancing chaos and creativity – reflections on how emotional turmoil can fuel or take away from creative work (00:28:11)
- Identity, ego, and output in art – how artists' identities are tied to their creative output and the challenges that brings (00:33:32)
- Discussing various levels of consciousness (00:40:44)
- Challenges of art school and institutional expectations – Jia reflects on the pressures and baggage that come from a formal art education (00:43:48)
- Breaking away from art jargon and structured critique to find a personal voice (00:54:27)
- Lightheartedly discussing astrology (01:04:04)
- The Artist Decoded Tarot and Jia’s “The Trickster’s Journey” tarot (01:10:27)
- Discussing the potential future of AI (01:18:17)
- Jia’s advice to her younger self (01:30:41)
Episode co-host: Jennifer Sodini