Artist Decoded by Yoshino

Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Topics Discussed:

• Questioning illusions
• Envying what others have
• Finding a deeper understanding of ourselves
• Brutal honesty with oneself
• Dealing with trauma
• Healing
• Building your intuitive muscle
• Being conscious of what we give our time to
• Writing from a place of honesty
• Embracing paradoxes

Yoshino's Links: yoshinostudios.com instagram.com/yoshinostudios twitter.com/yoshinostudios

Elly Smallwood is a figurative and portrait artist living in Canada. She works primarily in acrylics and oils.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Elly moving from Ottawa to the woods
• The energetic differences she notices between living in a city versus being in the woods
• Modern-day false prophets and gurus
• The power of questioning dogmatic principles
• Art capitalism
• Trying to seek balance in the need to live a peaceful life, while simultaneously wanting to seek progression in one's career
• Elly's experiences working with galleries
• Growth through vulnerability
• Her perspective of creating portraits of other people in contrast to creating portraits of herself
• Model vs. muse
• Elly's bone collection
• Tarot and its influence on Elly's artwork
• The Hermit and The Tower in the Major Arcana in Tarot
• Elly training Muay Thai
• Working through uncomfortable experiences

Artists / People Mentioned:

• Nina Menkes (Film Director)

Books Mentioned:

• The Richest Man In Babylon (George Samuel Clason)
• The Kybalion (Three Initiates)
• The Vegetarian (Han Kang)

Films / TV Series Mentioned:

• Wild Wild Country
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Brainwashed: Sex, Camera, Power

artistdecoded.com elly.ca instagram.com/ellysmallwood

With the release of Black Magnet's debut album 'Hallucination Scene' in 2020 a new Industrial Metal power emerged from the unlikely landscape of Oklahoma City. After anxiously waiting out the pandemic Black Magnet returned to the road in late 2021 and has now dropped 'Body Prophecy' the second full-length burst of machine-driven mayhem and electronic deviance. On 'Body Prophecy' mastermind, James Hammontree welds the frenetic vitality of post-punk and metal energy with driving synthetic club beats, factory force physicality, and alluringly stark melodic pulses. Tracks like 'Floating in Nothing' and 'Violent Mechanix' feature both intensely catchy hooks and hammering brutal noise. 'Sold Me Sad' is a quietly deranged lullaby that takes an atmospheric turn. The throbbing drug-addled lurch of the Manson / Reznor-esque 'Incubate' is, at the end of the album, treated to a completely re-imagined and extended club-style remix by scene legend Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Zonal, etc). For all its harsher, scraping atmospheres and pummeling aggression 'Body Prophecy' always remains an eminently tight, memorable album molded for the stage and constructed to keep bodies in motion and listeners transfixed.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• How The Kybalion impacted James's life/creative practice
• Hermeticism and the 7 Hermetic principles
• Folklore behind "Ring Around The Rosie"
• Draxler's visual contribution to Black Magnet's newest album "Body Prophecy"
• Recording "Body Prophecy" during the early stages of the pandemic
• James working with Justin K Broadrick
• Suffering through challenging material to grow one's creative perspective
• Looking past genres to develop a deeper relationship with artworks
• Tapping into your highest vibration, frequency, and energy
• Creating art with absolute honesty
• Embracing the paradox
• Transforming negative outlooks into positive perspectives
• "The Pregnant Void" in Taoism

Artists / People Mentioned:

• Salvador Dalí (Surrealist Painter)
• Francis Bacon (Painter)
• Max Ernst (Surrealist Painter)
• Mitch Horowitz (Author / Occult Historian)
• Jay Cheel (Director)
• Andrei Tarkovsky (Director)
• Alejandro Jodorosky (Director)
• David Lynch (Director)
• Alan Watts (Writer)

Bands / Musicians Mentioned:

• Justin K. Broadrick
• Godflesh
• Jesu
• Vatican Shadow
• Killing Joke
• The Birthday Party
• Big Black
• Meshuggah
• Blood Incantation
• Greg Puciato

Books Mentioned:

• The Kybalion
• The Lord of the Rings
• The Occult: A History
• Man, Myth, and Magic Series
• The Hellbound Heart
• I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

Films / TV Series Mentioned:

• Midsommar
• Cursed Films
• Serpent and the Rainbow
• Twilight Zone Movie
• The Birds
• The Exorcist
• Poltergeist
• Stalker
• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
• Hereditary
• The Witch
• The Crow
• The Wizard of OZ
• Weeds
• Hellraiser

artistdecoded.com blckmgnt.bandcamp.cominstagram.com/bl4ckm4gnet

Oliver Johnson aka Dorian Concept will release his new album What We Do For Others on 28th October on Brainfeeder Records. It's the third studio album by the Austrian producer and synthesizer savant, famed for his singular, beautifully detailed sonic tapestries and wild, utterly joyful live keyboard jam videos. What We Do For Others is a relaxed, quietly confident and intimate record, founded on delightfully loose arrangements, feedbacked soundscapes and blessed with snatches of cryptic vocals that are presented more as additional instrumentation rather than lyrical phrases. All the elements and layers were recorded without interruptions and deliberately not edited. "I think that's why this record has something of a 'band sound'" says Oliver. "It's me playing all kinds of different key- instruments, singing and using fx-units to create these freeform compositions." The title came to Oliver in a dream and stuck with him. "One thing I often find interesting about my creative process is that when I believe to be making something that others could like, it tends to not really connect with people," he says. "Whereas when I get to that special place and just work from my gut – the music tends to often speak to the outside world naturally." Johnson says that he tried questioning his internal voice of self-judgment and temper his constant urge for improvement during the making of the album. Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Dorian's earliest memories of being introduced to music through film soundtracks such as Batman Returns (1992)
• Sound synthesis
• The earliest influences on Dorian
• Dorian being influenced by Dj Spinna's "Heavy Beats Vol. 2" in his youth
• Experimenting and improvising with Micro Korgs
• Dorian learning how to play the piano around the age of 6
• Prepared piano
• The importance of having teachers that can nurture one's individual creativity
• Connections between music and video games
• 8 to 16-bit music used in early console games
• Psychedelics
• Set and setting
• Questioning one's perspective on using time
• The intentionality of decisions made throughout one's life
• The compulsion for creating art
• Dorian's reasons for choosing to become a professional artist
• His new album "What We Do For Others"
• His track, Survival Instinct being the "heartpiece" of his album
• Drawing parallels between creating a sculpture and creating music
• Presenting complex points of view to a wider audience
• Commercialization vs. arthouse creations
• Breaking rules and questioning the process
• Paradigm shifts in one's own unique consciousness
• Dorian creating lo-fi music videos for himself with the use of archival footage and processed through Blender

Artists Mentioned:

• Dimlite (Musician)
• Mike Slott (Musician)
• Tupac (Rapper)
• DJ Spinna (DJ)
• John Coletrain (Saxophonist)
• Edgard Varès (Composer)
• Aphex Twin (Musician)
• Little Snake (Musician)

artistdecoded.com dorianconcept.com

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Discrimination against women in the film industry
• The Weinstein investigation
• 94% of women working in the film industry experiencing sexual assault
• How film objectifies women through the use of camera angles, camera movement, and lighting techniques
• Updating the narrative point of view
• Predatory perspectives within filmmaking
• Portraying love and intimacy in film in more nuanced ways
• Addressing the male gaze
• The need for more government funding for the arts in the U.S.

Artists / People Mentioned:

• Iyabo Kwayana (Cinematographer)
• Jeffrey Martin Zacks (Psychologist)
• Sandra De Castro Buffington (Producer)
• Catherine Hardwicke (Filmmaker)
• Laura Mulvey (Film Theorist)
• Eliza Hittman (Filmmaker)
• Werner Herzog (Director)
• Claire Denis (Director)

Films Mentioned:

• Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
• Sleeping Beauty (1959)
• Blonde (2022)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
• Titane (2021)
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

artistdecoded.com ninamenkes.com

Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded.

Topics Discussed:

• “When do you feel the most in flow?”
• Being able to follow one’s instincts
• Asking questions to one’s self
• Journaling
• Discipline
• “What things matter to you most?”
• Inspiration and observation

Yoshino’s Links:
yoshinostudios.com
instagram.com/yoshinostudios
twitter.com/yoshinostudios

Louis Cole is a singer-songwriter and sickeningly talented multi-instrumentalist with a strong DIY aesthetic from Los Angeles, California. He is on a mission to create deep feelings through music and is the figurehead of an LA jazz-adjacent scene that includes Genevieve Artadi (with whom Cole co-founded the alt pop / electrofunk band KNOWER in 2009), Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes, Jacob Mann, Dennis Hamm, Pedro Martins and more. He will release his new album "Quality Over Opinion" on 14th October 2022 on Brainfeeder Records.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• What initially attracted Louis to wanting to become a musician
• Olfactory memories
• How Louis approaches creating music now
• Louis's love for harmony and chord progressions
• Musical gifts from the universe
• Louis's daily routines
• The multiple albums Louis has coming out including a collaboration with Metropole Orkest in Holland
• Louis's wide range of eclectic musical taste
• His experiences going to USC for music school

Artists Mentioned:

• Frédéric Chopin (Composer)
• Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer)
• Bill Evans (Pianist)
• Gil Evans (Pianist)
• James Brown (Singer / Performer)
• Stevie Wonder (Singer-Songwriter)
• Igor Stravinsky (Composer)
• Genevieve Artadi (Jazz Musician)
• Thundercat (Singer-Songwriter / Bassist)
• Sam Gendel (Musician)
• Blake Mills (Musician)
• Pino Palladino (Musician)
• Kurt Rosenwinkel (Jazz Guitarist)
• Meshuggah (Band)
• Gustav Mahler (Composer)
• Skrillex (DJ)
• Doug Mosher (Saxophonist)
• Keith Jarrett (Composer / Pianist)

Video Games Mentioned:

• Mario Kart
• Starfox
• Streets of Rage

artistdecoded.com louiscole.bandcamp.com instagram.com/louiscolemusic

Joseph Lee is an actor & self-taught artist who studies faces and the emotions that inhabit them. Lee focuses on the parallels between external reality and the internal process by manipulating everyday faces and objects through segmented brush strokes, color choice, and volume, converging them into a complete and balanced whole.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• Joseph Lee's upcoming solo exhibit opening at GR Gallery in NYC on September 8, 2022
• The importance of taking care of one's own mental health
• Examining the origin of pain and trauma
• Joey moving to LA to pursue acting
• The moment when he decided to become a painter
• Potency in making decisive and guttural decisions
• Spiritual connection through art
• Having an insatiable curiosity of people
• His currently unreleased Netflix show "Beef" (starring David Choe, Steven Yeun, Patti Yasutake, Ali Wong)
• Utilizing gratitude prayers and journaling
• Simplifying one's life to help alleviate anxiety
• Reconnecting and remembering our child self
• Challenging our needs for external validations
• Fighting against jadedness

Artists Mentioned:

• Marie-Louise von Franz (Psychologist)
• Martha Graham (Choreographer)

Books Mentioned:

• The Book of Five Rings (Miyamoto Musashi)

Podcasts Mentioned:

• Hidden Brain - "The Secret Life of Secrets"

Films Mentioned:

• The Godfather Trilogy
• Paterson (2016)

artistdecoded.com josephleeart.com instagram.com/joeyunlee

The long arc of Joshua Hagler's oeuvre, with its focus on painting, could be traced by its slow, physical and conceptual disintegration - of it's imagery, politics, art historical underpinnings, and philosophical erudition - from its early pictorial messaging to a need, in more recent years, for direct physical experience of the numinous. Material layering is at the core of Hagler's work, combining a range of self-developed painting processes which force a loss of skilled control, making for radical pictorial transformation. The works situates itself in the paradox of absence and presence, the internal and external, and the sacred and profane. Whatever research occurs with regard to issues such as mass shooting, wildfires, and religiosity in America, only demonstrates itself to the degree that it's relevant to the artist's own background and direct life experience. The personal is thus foregrounded and given preference over academic defenses, which are subverted at every opportunity. Hagler's distinct signature manages to span paintings both physically slight and vast, figurative and abstract. The work is intentional about avoiding redundancy common in an era of self-conscious branding, preferring endless evolution, while seeking to ground itself in deeper authenticity over time.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• The Tenets of Nihil
• Exile & Absence (The Archaic Brother) - The first tenet of Nihil
• The reasons why Josh moved from California to New Mexico in 2017
• Paradoxes
• Private vs. public conversations
• Arvo Pärt's compositional style, "tintinnabuli"
• Josh's observations in abandoned spaces throughout New Mexico
• Believing in consciousness
• Axis Mundi
• Patterns emerging out of observations
• The Archaic Brother
• How being a father has given him a deeper meaning and appreciation for life
• The role meditation has played in his life

Artists Mentioned:

1. Ruben Östlund (Director)
2. Arvo Pärt (Composer)
3. Mark Rothko (Painter)
4. Aja Daashuur (Medium)

Books Mentioned:

1. The Daemon (Anthony Peake)
2. The Seat of the Soul (Gary Zukav)

Films Mentioned:

1. The Square (2017)
2. Force Majeure (2014)

artistdecoded.com joshuahagler.com instagram.com/haglerjosh

Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Topics Discussed:

• Channeling the muse
• Seeking the higher self
• Questioning one's own intentions and motivations
• Journaling

Artists Mentioned:

• Anthony Peake (Writer)
• Gary Zukav (Writer)
• Carl Jung (Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst)
• Michael Pollan (Writer)
• Margaret Atwood (Writer)

Books Mentioned:

1. The Seat of the Soul (Gary Zukav)
2. The Daemon (Anthony Peake)
3. Caffeine (Michael Pollan)

Yoshino's Links: yoshinostudios.com instagram.com/yoshinostudios twitter.com/yoshinostudios