Artist Decoded by Yoshino

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Maja: Maja Ruznic, a prolific and active artist, is primarily a painter, a storyteller who conjures form and narrative from ground up mineral, smeared oil, and stained canvas. Born in Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1983, Ruznic immigrated to the United States with her family in 1995, settling on the West Coast where she eventually went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley, later receiving an MFA from the California College of Arts. Ruznic's often-quoted biography – a refugee who escaped the Bosnian War – is only the beginning of her journey. Ruznic's vivid paintings speak for themselves, depicting figures that seem to emerge from the caverns of human history, from within their own supports, and somehow from within the viewer's own recollections. These paintings breach something intrinsically human and Ruznic guides us deftly with dark humor and complex representations, not dissimilar to Werner Herzog's wry, but poignant 3-D documentary depicting the oldest painted images in the world. Ruznic has exhibited internationally and her work has been written about extensively, most notably in ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings, including the cover as selected by curator Anne Ellegood. In 2018, Ruznic was a recipient of the Hopper Prize and in 2019, Ruznic's painting "Azmira's Daughters" was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art. In 2020, she has upcoming solo shows with Conduit Gallery in Dallas, TX and Hales Gallery in London.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Practicing "Is-ness"
• Maja moving to Roswell, NM
• Intaking artwork at a subconscious level
• Recognizing and healing from pain and trauma
• Maja growing up in Bosnia in various refuge camps

www.artistdecoded.com

Maja Ruznic's Website

https://www.instagram.com/majaruz/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Josh: Josh Peck is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and YouTube personality. Peck began his career as a child actor in the late 90s and early 2000s, and had an early role on The Amanda Show from 2000 to 2002. Peck rose to prominence for the role of Josh Nichols alongside Drake Bell's character in the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007, and in its two television films in 2006 and 2008.

He then acted in films such as Mean Creek (2004), Drillbit Taylor (2008), The Wackness (2008), ATM (2012), Red Dawn (2012), Battle of the Year (2013), Danny Collins (2015), and Take the 10 (2017). Peck provided the voice of Eddie in the Ice Age franchise since Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), and voiced Casey Jones in the Nickelodeon animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012–2017). He also starred with John Stamos in the Fox comedy series Grandfathered (2015–2016). In 2017, Peck started a comedic lifestyle YouTube channel, Shua Vlogs, featuring David Dobrik and his wife Paige O'Brien.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Peck's early life moving from New York to LA to pursue his career as an actor.
• His reflection on acting for Nickelodeon's Drake and Josh and breaking the mold as a "kid actor"
• Growing into his career in films such as Mean Creek, The Wackness, and Red Dawn.
• Kesh's director/ actor relationship with Peck on his recent film, and Peck's need for clear communication in such a relationship.
• Following an almost predestined path of the arts through the support system his single mother provided for him as a child.
• Expanding his skill in acting by still attending acting classes.
• Finding different means of supporting himself and his family independent acting through branding platforms such as Vine, YouTube, and Instagram.
• Peck's podcast, Curious, and his love for interviews and having conversations with other creatives.

www.artistdecoded.com

https://www.instagram.com/shuapeck/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Josh: Joshua Hagler lived and worked in San Francisco and then Los Angeles for fifteen years before moving to rural New Mexico in late 2017 as a grant recipient of the year-long Roswell Artist in Residence Program. He 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. Having not attended an art school or received an MFA, Hagler refers to himself as a working class artist. Not a stranger to class bias in the art world, self-directed research and travel has underpinned Hagler's career and is essential to how the artist integrates creative influences with his life experience. ​

While most of Hagler's early work responded directly to a difficult past within a variety of religious groups and their unspoken implications for the artist and his family, the later work has sought to understand religion in a deeper way. To Hagler's mind, one finds the seeds of religion in every facet of culture, even, and, perhaps especially, among the so-called secular realms. Religion, for Hagler, is not approached in the pejorative but in a state of acceptance that perhaps it's through the religious structures inherent in our shared languages and cultures that we access what makes us most human, for better and for worse.

Currently, he is hard at work in the studio preparing for his first U.K. solo exhibition with Unit London. In "Chimera," Hagler presents a body of new paintings that attempt to dig beneath various forms of loud political language, including censorship, for clues on how the ubiquity of groupthink informs populist world views on both ends of the spectrum. The artist, in practice, hopes to work into the "noise" to exhume something Other in the physical manner in which the work is made. ​ ​

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. 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 have appeared in a variety of publications and media outlets in the U.S. and Europe.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Hagler's move to Roswell, NM
• Finding more financial freedoms to make art without worry
• His former Christian upbringing and his current art practice
• Hagler's recent show "Chimera" @ Unit London, and its relation to process and collaboration
• On being a heavy reader, and the impact specific authors have had on him
• A discussion on the spiritual experience that exists in the studio, and surpassing the basics of technical expertise into an emotional connection
• The discipline of taking on multiple shows, and how it left Hagler with little time to premeditate his art to create better works
• His recent two-person show in LA that expresses the feeling of loss based on a six-line W.S. Merwin poem
• How artists can become inundated by the commercial, and political art market

www.artistdecoded.com

https://www.instagram.com/haglerjosh/

www.joshuahagler.com

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Daniel: Daniel Martin (1982) lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. In his current work he searches for the transmutational properties of matter. The portraits and sculptures do not have a definite form and posses different realities on how they can be perceived. In order to come to new forms Daniel cuts up paintings, finds things on the street and uses creations made by others. The loose elements from these endeavors are used as disjointed brushstrokes that are reassembled in coherent shapes again, creating an object which holds no truth in shape.

His work has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include, the national museum of revolution, Cuba; Duo Phillip Akkerman, Sis Josip Gallery, Den Haag; Havana Biënnale (collaboration with Karang (Karina Alonso); Forma prima, El pez soluble Gallery, Mexico; Bloom, Booth Gallery, New York.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Martin's early childhood experiences growing up in the Netherlands
• His initial career working commercially in computer graphics and his transition into fine art as a full time career
• Martin's range of sculpting both digitally and physically and how the two mediums intertwine
• How Martin's shared art studio space, The Plant, benefits him creatively and the power of bringing online artistic relationships to real life
• Martin's new project, 1606 Residency, in Leiden he's developed with Paintguide and the importance of connecting art collectives globally
• Finding ways to sustain and raise money to support his projects
• Removing the gallery system by means of giving power to the artist
• How goals function only as a journey to bring Martin to the next big thing

www.artistdecoded.com

www.danielmartin.nl

https://www.instagram.com/daniel_martin_art/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Mia: Mia Bergeron is a contemporary female oil painter focused on the dualism of everyday scenes. Rooted in her upbringing in New York City with continuous exposure to modern art at a young age, her paintings also reveal her choice to study classical painting in Florence, Italy. Throughout her work, influences of both contemporary and historical ideas can be seen, whether rooted by her choice of subjects or the exploratory nature of the tools she employs. Her work seeks to show the nebulous aspects of being human, often choosing to pose a question rather than pursue an answer.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Expanding the definitions of unconditional love.
• Being grateful and observant of personal obstacles as the first step of engagement / change.
• Her experience with an absence of internal monologue and a heightened sense of physical awareness.
• Approaching religion as mythology and stories of self.
• How humans use religion and mythology to rationalize evil and condone immoral action.
• Her personal way separating from academic and institutional modes of creation while trying to find her personal creative voice.
• Engaging with art (and people) in person instead of through Instagram and other readily accessible forms of e-media.
• The craving that human beings have for real connection vs. the illusion of the connection through social media. Disregarding the need for a very natural "tribe mentality."
• Her personal triggers for anxiety and her methods of reestablishing her mind-body connection when anxiety hits.
• Breaking down overwhelming tasks both in and outside artistic practice.

www.artistdecoded.com

www.miabergeron.com

https://www.instagram.com/miabergeron/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Christian: Christian Rex van Minnen was born in Providence, RI in 1980 and received his BA from Regis University, Denver in 2002. He has exhibited throughout the US and internationally and was recently awarded an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, CO (Fall, 2017). Recent exhibitions include con-figuration, a group exhibit at Postmasters, NY, Juxtapoz x Superflat, co-curated by Takashi Murakami & Evan Pricco at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada and Enantiodromia a solo show at Gallery Poulsen in Copenhagen, Denmark. Public Collections include: Denver Art Museum, Djurhuus Collection, The Christine & Andy Hall Collection, Colección Solo, and the Richard B. Sachs Collection. van Minnen currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Van Minnen's early experiences making art as a child and how his personal experiences developed his mentality towards art
• A discussion on automatic drawing and mark-making with figuration
• Van Minnen's inspiration ranging from Titian to the Dutch Golden Age to Kandinsky (Book: Concerning the Spiritual in Art)
• Developing a connection with art through materials and technique, and also the connection of van Minnen's Dutch heritage
• Reflecting on his recent book, a monograph of the past fifteen years of his artwork.
• A look into van Minnen's painting process and technique
• A conversation on ego, belief, and knowing oneself, specifically touching on paths of transcendence noted in "The Devil's of Loudun" by Aldous Huxley
• A fascination with tattoos and how they've entered van Minnen's work

www.artistdecoded.com

Pre-Order Christian Rex van Minnen's Book, "Massa Confusa"

www.christianrexvanminnen.com

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Johan: Born in 1959, Johan Van Mullem lives and works in Belgium.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• His beginnings in discovering his art practice
• His background studying architecture in university
• How various day jobs in and outside architecture impacted his art practice
• His approach to painting and creative process
• His interpretation of the balance between happiness and struggle
• The nuances of developing ones self through physical activities
• Painting as a form of meditation
• The benefits of consistently having a young mindset and the power of positivity
• Addressing problems within your personal life when they arise
• Intention of utilizing one's energy

www.artistdecoded.com

www.johanvanmullem.com

https://www.instagram.com/johanvanmullem/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Zoey: Zoey Frank (b. 1987, Boulder, CO) received her MFA in painting from Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California after studying for four years with Juliette Aristides in the Classical Atelier at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, Washington. She is represented by Danese/Corey Gallery in New York City, and Galerie Mokum in Amsterdam. She has received numerous honors and awards, including three Elizabeth Greenshields grants, the Avigdor Arikha Memorial International Residency Scholarship, the Artist's Magazine All Media Competition Grand Prize of 2012, the Hudson River Fellowship in 2012, and scholarships from the Albert K. Murray Foundation, the Stacey Foundation, and the Art Renewal Center. Her work has been featured in publications such as Fine Art Connoisseur, American Art Collector, the International Artist Magazine, Artist's Magazine, and Southwest Art. She lives and works in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Topics Discussed In This Podcast:

• Frank's first love of Renaissance paintings and technical beauty
• Using a collaboration with materials and experimenting with process
• Creating artworks that are unique and personal by painting mundane objects that focus less on the subject and more on the technical quality
• Frank's ability to approach paintings of the same subject with different sets of problems to solve
• Refueling her creative energy by traveling, looking at art, and talking to other artists
• The importance of maintaining routines to create balance and making time for the business aspect of art
• The quality of working observationally from an unplanned still life
• Frank's persistence with applying and getting rejected for art opportunities

www.artistdecoded.com

zoeyfrank.com

https://www.instagram.com/zoeyfrank/

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

AD Non-Weekly Round Up #6 with Yoshino and AD co-host Saman Kesh.

Topics Discussed:

• ADHD, creativity, and distraction.
• Media ingestion for education vs. media ingestion for enjoyment
• Art vs. commerce
• Experiencing the loss of a loved one

www.artistdecoded.com

https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded

About Yumi: YUMI SAKUGAWA is an Ignatz Awards nominated comic book artist and the author of I THINK I AM IN FRIEND-LOVE WITH YOU and YOUR ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BECOMING ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE. Her comics have also appeared in The Believer, Bitch, the Best American Non­Required Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. She has also exhibited multimedia installations at the Japanese American National Museum and the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building. A graduate from the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in Los Angeles.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Drawing, writing, meditation, performance art, and engagement in multiple creative disciplines as an artistic practice and career.
• Being an extroverted introvert or an "ambivert".
• Growing up as an Asian American student in both American and Japanese academic systems.
• Stream of consciousness and dream logic.
• Using meditation to supplement her mental health.
• How her meditation surfaces in her work visually.
• Rediscovering "fun" in the creative process.
• Using humor as a vehicle to explore and express darker subject matter.
• The importance of being a female Asian American artist under the projective narratives of both American and Asian patriarchy.
• The fetishization of Asian American artists and women.
• Her part in helping other Asian American woman artists achieve visibility.
• Mental health, personal boundaries, and keeping a balance in her personal relationships and art practice.
• Giving herself permission to take the time needed to slow down in order to be creative.

www.artistdecoded.com

www.yumisakugawa.com

https://www.instagram.com/yumisakugawa/