Artist Decoded By Yoshino

"Making pictures is one of the earliest memories I recall. Before learning to write the alphabet I was drawing from my imagination in crayons. And over all the years that followed, there has never been a period where I didn’t continue the practice. I remember for example just after graduating high school and living on my own as a dishwasher with no ambitions in life but to get drunk and high. But when the party was over I would be in the kitchen of a house I didn’t live in, drawing past dawn. Or even when I was a student at the University of California Berkeley, on my way towards a corporate life, having never conceived even the possibility where art could be a profession, I filled my notebooks not with words from lectures, but with sketches of teachers and classmates. And though later I would become a ‘professional artist’, I sometimes look back at such moments if confused with the roots of my creativity. It started purely as an act of autonomy, where nothing outside myself influenced or affected it. I simpl

Steve Kim is an artist and illustrator. Born in Seoul, Korea, he immigrated to the states at the age of two and currently resides in Oxford, Mississippi. He received his undergraduate degree from Art Center College of Design in 2006 and his masters from Claremont Graduate University in 2010. He has shown in Korea, Italy, London, Amsterdam, Krakow and throughout the United States and clients include The Outline, FRAMƎ, Matter/Medium, Adobe, Hohe Luft, The New Republic, Arc/New Scientist, and The Verge. His work has been featured in print in Quiet Lunch, New American Paintings, Computer Arts, Beautiful Decay, PRINT Magazine, and American Illustration and online on Hi-Fructose, Juxtapoz, BOOOOOOOM!, The Fox Is Black, Supersonic Art, and Tumblr's Radar. Most recently he completed a 3 month residency at the Red Bull House of Art in Detroit. www.artistdecoded.com

Colin Chillag, born in 1971, is a painter based out of Phoenix, AZ. Topics Discussed In This Episode: Personal approaches to creating artwork Meditation The challenges of commercialization Realism Painting from found photographs Colin’s “girlfriend” series Black Mirror Ray Kurzweil Museum of Jurassic Technology Psychedelics The realities of being an artist www.artistdecoded.com www.nohwave.bigcartel.com

Casey Gleghorn grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He is the Director @ Booth Gallery and Last Rites Gallery in New York City. He has been a gallery owner/director for over 9 years, has curated international museum exhibitions, and currently works with various international established and emerging artists.  Topics Discussed In This Episode: How he became the director of Booth Gallery Jesse Draxler Richard Prince Stress and overworking Creating balance in your life Meditation NOH/WAVE Modern technology effecting the way galleries operate Extinction of the mid-tier gallery Artist run spaces Adapting to the changes in the art market Eric Lacombe Odd Nerdrum Social media marketing for artists Casey’s opinion on art fairs Remembering Gregorio Escalante www.artistdecoded.com www.nohwave.bigcartel.com

Ian Daniel is a filmmaker, producer, writer, and curator. He is the Co-host and Executive Producer of the Emmy-nominated television show GAYCATION on VICELAND, where he and actress Ellen Page explore LGBTQ culture around the world. He is currently in post-production on a feature-length documentary film he directed and is developing other documentary, television, and art projects. Daniel is also the former Director of Artistic Programs at The Civilians, a theater company in NYC that derives their work from intensive investigations into today’s vital questions, on topics such as death, crime in the US, LGBTQ issues, the porn industry, and the Women’s Prison in Bogota Colombia.   As a curator, he has organized several exhibits and multimedia events at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Exit Art, LaMaMa Gallery, Storefront Bushwick and the Waterpod Project in NYC and Brooklyn.  www.artistdecoded.com nohwave.bigcartel.com

Dave Elitch first garnered attention with his band Daughters of Mara’s debut album “I am Destroyer” in 2007, but his time touring with the American progressive rock band The Mars Volta in 2009-2010 is what really put him on the map. He has since worked with Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, M83, The 1975, Juliette Lewis, Big Black Delta, as well as many others. He is a regular in the LA session scene, including performing on various records, syncs and film scores for major motion pictures, (most recently “Trolls” and “Logan.”) In addition to playing, he also conducts master-class lectures worldwide and keeps a busy private teaching practice in Los Angeles where he has developed a reputation as THE technique/body mechanic specialist who has helped many of the industries top players as well as educators. “Ever since I decided that I was going to be a drummer, I wanted to be the best I could possibly be, and I put all my faculties toward that. Eventually that can take a toll, so I kind of hit a wall and needed a b

With iconic photography of young iconoclasts, musicians, and bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, The Circle Jerks, Ice Cube, and Bad Religion, as well as hundreds of other early punk and hip hop bands, Edward Colver was an insider to the turbulent and burgeoning underground music scene of early-eighties Los Angeles. Since active in photography for more than forty years, he first documented an average of five local shows a week using only a 35mm camera, flash, and Kodak Tri-X film.  Colver’s book, Blight at the End of the Funnel, collects some of the best of his hardcore punk and promotional work for record companies. His shot of Henry Rollins for the cover of Black Flag’s “Damaged” album was used on billboards and lamppost flyers throughout Los Angeles during the Annenberg Space for Photography’s Who Shot Rock and Roll installation in 2012, curated by Brooklyn Museum curator and author Gail Buckland. In addition to numerous other openings, including Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects

Winning the Archibald Prize as Guy Maestri did in 2009 would be a defining moment in most artist’s careers, but he is quick to cite physical immersion in the landscape as revolutionary to his painting practice. It’s easy to gloss over the history of plein-air as a European tradition, born of gentle grasses and mild sunlight. Practiced in Australia, away from the slip of green coastline, plein-air demands rigor of vast dimensions. For Maestri, the material and temporal challenges of extended painting sessions in the hard country around Hill End, Wilcannia and Broken Hill has been instrumental in a new understanding of local art histories and ecologies, as well as the atmospheric and elemental qualities of landscape. Beholden to intimacies of place, the artist stakes out a subtle void or stillness in these dry landscapes without surrendering his animated, almost kinetic approach to paint. Masquerading as a shady retreat, the studio retains its disciplinarian attitude but demands a different kind of focus. Here

Virginie Picot – originally from Paris – has devoted the last 17 years of her career to talent management and visual creations, specializing in the fashion and music industries. Currently living in NYC, she is an agent and Executive Producer for Iconoclast Image and leads the print department. She represents emerging photographers such as Olivia Bee, David Uzochukwu, and Mathieu Cesar, as well as established talents such as Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Cyrille de Vignemont, and Gus Van Sant. She has worked alongside globally renowned recording artists such as Katy Perry, Future, and Kesha, as well as fashion designers including Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, Damir Doma, and Zaid Affa. Topics Discussed In This Episode: Starting her career directly out of university within the music industry Working for V2 Music Her experience working at a photo gallery in London Working for Givenchy in Paris Magic vs magick Her love for the work of Francis Bacon and Alexander McQueen Working for Iconoclast Image in NY The balance betw

Brad Kunkle was raised in rural Pennsylvania and graduated from Kutztown University with a BFA in painting in 2001. Rather than continue his artistic pursuits in an academic environment, he became a house painter. That dubious, professional beginning however, taught him valuable lessons that became crucial to his later success. Having taught himself how to gild with precious metals for some of those residential projects, he later implemented those skills in his personal, fine art works. His debut, fine art exhibition in 2010 at Arcadia Contemporary in NYC sold out before the show's opening night and was followed by a second sold-out exhibition two years later. Since then he has exhibited his paintings in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, Miami, and his works can be found in private collections all over the world. His paintings have twice graced the cover of American Art Collector Magazine and have been published extensively online and in print in such highly read publications as Hi-Fructose, American Art

“What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin—to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it.” - Henry Miller Digging beneath the mess of the world to find the beauty underneath is perhaps the most consistent theme in Chelsea Wolfe’s expansive discography—a theme that ties together her ceaseless explorations in unorthodox textures, haunting melodies, and mining the grandeur embedded within ugliness and pain. With her sixth official album Hiss Spun, Wolfe adopts Miller’s quest to become empowered by embracing the mess of the self, to control the tumult of the soul in hopes of reigning in the chaos of the world around us. “I wanted to write some sort of escapist music; songs that were just about being in your body, and getting free,” Wolfe says of the album before extrapolating on the broader scope of her new collection of songs. “You’re just bom

​​​​​​​Nika Roza Danilova has been recording and performing as Zola Jesus for more than a decade. As a classically trained opera singer with a penchant for noisy, avant-garde sounds, she launched her career with a series of lo-fi releases that pitted her soaring vocals against harsh industrial clatter and jittery synths. The signature Zola Jesus sound became more hi-fi as she began to explore her own skewed vision of pop music on releases like Stridulum, Valusia, and Conatus. With the release of Conatus, Danilova was propelled to regular appearances on festival stages all around the world, as well as a special performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. That era culminated in the release of Versions, a collection of string quartet interpretations of her most beloved work, conducted by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus). That album and subsequent tour were followed by her most hi-fi outing to date, Taiga. Now, coinciding with her return to both the Wisconsin woods in which she was raised and her longtime

"Jesse Draxler is an artist best known for his collage and mixed media works, though with his new exhibition "Tire Fire" we find him returning to the medium that sparked his love of image making, drawing. As a child growing up in rural Wisconsin Draxler drew incessantly. Being that his father was a mechanic he would spend hours upon hours drawing cars, trucks, and engine parts. Later in adolescence, his attention changed as circumstances became bleak. Draxler’s mother was in a near-fatal car accident when he was nine. Upon her recovery, over a year later, his parents were divorced. His mother, whom he was now living with, soon remarried. Then just months after the wedding she was ran over and killed by her new husband in his truck, an event to which he arrived just moments later. In the following years, Draxler states that he barely remembers a thing. These times of pervasive uncertainty and loss changed him forever and his focus shifted to much darker interests. He was always an outcast from his peers, but f

"Photographer John Kilar’s site will tell you, simply, that he is a nomad. Portraits and landscapes by Kilar will show you that too, with a raw presentation of untamed characters and equally wild and beautiful locations. Variety does not shake the colorful, documentary aesthetic that is true to his photos, which show a curious admiration for each subject. John Kilar’s images can be found in Oyster Magazine, VICE, Dazed & Confused, Purple Fashion, and DIS Magazine. His client list includes Heineken, Urban Outfitters, The Cobra Snake, and several other lifestyle-saavy brands which Kilar worked with while living in Venice Beach, California." Text by Linnea Stephan @ Juxtapoz Topics Discussed In This Episode: His journey into a nomadic lifestyle Synchronicities Following your bliss Deactivating technology to be more focused on the present moment Expanding consciousness Identity Having empathy towards others www.artistdecoded.com www.twitter.com/yoshinostudios

Originally hailing from Toronto, Canada, Michelle Groskopf is a Los Angeles based photographer. Her work is a mix of photo journalism, portraiture and street photography. She holds a BFA in film and video production from the School Of Visual Arts in New York where she also taught as an adjunct professor in the graduate film and video dept. She is a member of the celebrated flash photography collective Full Frontal Flash. Michelle is dedicated to empowering youth through photography and education initiatives working with the Lucie Foundation, Educare and Youth Arts to inspire the next generation of photographers and artists. Her work has been shown around the world and featured in publications such as The British Journal Of Photography, American Photo, The Huffington Post, Vice Magazine and It’s Nice That, among others. Her clients include, Refinery 29, Bloomberg Businessweek, Vice Magazine, Marie Claire France, Aftenposten, and Stern Magazine. Her first monograph is being published by The Magenta Foundation a

Writer / photographer, Scot Sothern, bounced around for forty years. In 2010, at 60, his first solo exhibit, LOWLIFE, photos and stories of life with street prostitutes, was held at the notorious Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles. His first book of the same title was published in the U.K. by Stanley Barker in 2011. The British Journal of Photography called LOWLIFE, “The years’ most controversial photobook.” Scot’s work has since been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London, and Paris. In 2013 he began a biweekly column, Nocturnal Submissions, for VICE Magazine, and Curb Service: A Memoir, was published by Soft Skull Press. STREETWALKERS, stories and photographs was published by powerHouse Books in February 2016. Writer, Jerry Stahl, called it “An absolutely amazing and essential book." BIG CITY, published in 2017 by Stalking Horse Press, is Sothern’s first novel. Guest Interviewer: Nolwen Cifuentes www.artistdecoded.com

GEMS is the evolving ethereal pop project of former lovers Lindsay Pitts and Clifford John Usher. After an agonizing romantic split, the duo are continuing to make music together with the project: ‘Every Full Moon’. The full moon represents a time of culmination and fulfillment, of coming full circle, and a symbolic illumination in our inner lives that is mirrored in the night sky. GEMS will be releasing a new song with every full moon as they work through the ghosts of their past and face the uncertainty of the future. Their hope is that the music they create can serve as a vehicle to transform the pain and work through things that otherwise seem totally overwhelming. Topics Discussed In This Episode: Being able to separate yourself from your art Constantly investigating and navigating the world Neil Young, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell Astrology Releasing their songs at the end of the full moon cycle Changes the duo has been going through both personally and with their musical career Technological advances Th

"I'm an art director, motion designer, and illustrator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I've been working online since 2003 with an extensive list of creatives in music videos, live visual packages, lookbooks, and everything art related. I have studied Beauty Arts in Bachillerato de Bellas Artes in my natal city, La Plata. I also have a teaching degree in Beauty Arts." - Gustavo Torres (aka Kidmograph)." Topics Discussed In This Episode: His beginnings as a painter then transitioning to digital art Juxtaposing disparate elements together His daily flow Staying disciplined Looking inward for inspiration www.artistdecoded.com

John F Simon Jr. is a multimedia artist and software art pioneer who work and installations are found in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others. In 2011, he collaborated with Icelandic singer Bjork to write an app for her album, Biophilia. Simon's newest publication, Drawing Your Own Path: 33 Practices at the Crossroads of Art and Meditation, is out now by Parallax Press. Simon grew up in central Louisiana and currently lives and works in Sugar Loaf, New York. Topics Discussed in this Episode:  Creative ruts leading to personal creative breakthroughs His experiences going to Brown and SVA How he started to experiment with digital imaging Communal VR and AR spaces "Snowcrash", a book by Neal Stephenson Classic panopticons His research into AI The "no-self" experience Discussing the idea behind his book "Drawing Your Own Path" Understanding and dissecting meditation "Secret of the Golden Flower" (

Casey is a painter based in New York City. Topics discussed in this episode: Accepting imperfections Explanation of his upcoming solo exhibit, "Exposed" Being honest with oneself Creating visceral and guttural artwork Absorbing inspiration and life experiences Taking risks Balancing artistic, creative, and business practices Setting up monetary systems to allow yourself the freedom to create art for a living Tony Robbins Films Comparing films to paintings www.artistdecoded.com www.instagram.com/artistdecoded www.twitter.com/yoshinostudios