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 Hagler's career and is essential to how the artist integrates creative influences with his life experience. 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. 2021 marks two solo exhibitions for Hagler with "Drawing in the Dark" at Cris Worley in Dallas and "The Living Circle Us" at Unit London, curated by David Anfam. 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, as well as his own poems and essays, have appeared in a variety of publications and media outlets in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Æmen on Aletheia House and the inception of the residency (00:03:05)
• Creating art beyond self-satisfaction; maturing through service to others (00:10:45)
• Engaging with life soulfully (00:16:41)
• The film, Being There (Peter Sellers). and aligning with a higher calling (00:21:00)
• Franz Kafka's The Hunger Artist (00:28:27)
• Æmen on his relationship with his wife, artist Maja Ruznic (00:36:03)
• On becoming (00:46:55)
• On Æmen new book, Nihil (00:52:26)
• Yoshino and Æmen discuss spirituality and religion (01:03:46)
• Exploring values; deepening consciousness and awareness (01:19:06)

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