Christian Rex van Minnen and I decided to talk on Valentine's Day. He was about to be announced as the cover artist for the SPRING 2024 Juxtapoz Quarterly and, like two old friends should do, we wanted to have a talk on a day where sharing your feelings is a rite of passage. Over the years, the Santa Cruz-based painter and I have had a long history of, you guessed it, long talks, but we haven't spoken since the pandemic started and it felt like it was time for a catch up. His masterful paintings had recently graced the walls of Veta Galerie in Madrid, and there seemed to be a slight evolution of his visual language that I couldn't quite put my finger on. So, let's chat it out.

What we found on this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast is an artist not just in an evolution of his craft but in an evolution of his psyche, his philosophies, his selfhood. I've always felt like Christian was wise beyond his year, a thinker who takes those deeply meditative moments alone in the studio and used them to contemplate the history of painting, the history of the self and man's ability to understand it's own darkness. It's own weaknesses, it's strengths. We didn't talk much about painting on this day (although I got some stories about the gummies), but we did talk about life and how much we each have changed over the last 16 years. —Evan Pricco

The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH WALL TV's Doug Gillen and Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 132 was recorded in Santa Cruz and Los Angeles on February 14, 2024 in Los Angeles. Follow us on ⁠⁠@radiojuxtapoz⁠⁠