Ray Barbee is an American skateboarder, musician, and photographer originally from San Jose, California. He started skateboarding in 1984, when he was in seventh grade, and has grown to become one of the most iconic skateboarders of his generation. His passion and do-it-yourself attitude, which distinguish him as a musician and as a skateboarder, also define his photography. He has been developing his own photos for the last sixteen years. Rarely without his Leica M6, Ray brings the same unique ...
Jul 09, 2025•1 hr 27 min
Yulia Bas’s artwork explores the fragmentation of contemporary individuality, healing, and the body as a somatic memory tool. Across her paintings, sculptures, and installations, equilibrating between figuration and abstraction, Yulia employs unconventional materials to explore her perception of physical and mental thresholds, transitional states, and subjective wholeness. Guided by her personal journey of transformation through body therapy and meditation as well as her immigrant background, Yu...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 41 min
Iranian-American director and writer Saman Kesh has the most Vimeo staff picks, ever. He attributes this accolade to excessive consumption of rocket fuel and a knack for combining the human experience with a healthy dose of controlled chaos. Saman gained recognition with popular music videos like Cinnamon Chasers: Luv Deluxe (which won ‘Best Video’ at SXSW), Kygo: Stole The Show and Basement Jaxx: Never Say Never, along with videos for Calvin Harris, Ed Sheeran, and Placebo. He has also directed...
Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Tomas Watson (b.1971) is a British artist who has lived and worked in Greece since 1994. He studied at the Slade School of Art in London. In 1998, he won the BP Portrait Award and was subsequently commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint the author John Fowles. This portrait is in their permanent collection. He is represented by the Jill George Gallery in London ( www.jillgeorgegallery.co.uk ) and Accesso Galleria in Tuscany ( www.accessogalleria.com ) Topics Discussed In This Epis...
Mar 31, 2025•1 hr 38 min
Pasqual Gutierrez is a writer, director and actor. Sundance 2025 Comedy “Serious People” was his debut into feature filmmaking alongside veteran documentary filmmaker Ben Mullinkosson who co-wrote and directed. Gutierrez is also 1/2 of music video directing duo CLIQUA who has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry including The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Rosalia, Madonna, and more. Gutierrez is developing his second feature, a sequel to Serious People. Ben Mullinkosson was raise...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Shuchi Talati is a filmmaker from India whose work challenges dominant narratives around gender, sexuality, and South Asian identity. Her feature film, Girls Will Be Girls, premiered at Sundance where it won an Audience Award and a Special Jury Award. Shuchi was a Gotham Awards Breakthrough Director nominee and a John Cassavetes Award nominee at the Spirit Awards. During development, Girls was supported by the Aide Aux Cinémas du Monde and Sørfond grants, Gotham Week, Berlinale Project Market an...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 25 min
Landon Van Soest is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Fulbright Scholar, and two-time Sundance Fellow. His work presents social commentary through rich characters and immersive narratives. Landon recently directed the Hulu Original Documentary The Jewel Thief, which was the #1 most viewed movie on Hulu worldwide in the summer of 2023. His previous documentary, For Ahkeem, premiered at the 2017 Berlinale and Tribeca Film Festivals, won seven Best Documentary awards, opened theatrically in ten citi...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 13 min
Growing up in Northern California, Jacob Rosenberg developed his passion for video and film as a skateboarder in the early 1990s, making acclaimed videos for Plan B Skateboards under the mentorship of the late founder Mike Ternasky. Upon his graduation from Emerson College, Rosenberg began his professional career directing music videos, short films, and commercials where he has directed and produced talent names such as LeBron James, Quincy Jones, Snoop Dogg, and Latto. Rosenberg served for a de...
Nov 22, 2024•2 hr 37 min
Joshua Hagler (b. 1979, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho) is a first-generation graduate with a graphic design degree from The University of Arizona. A 2018 grant recipient of the Roswell Artist in Residence Program, Hagler has since made New Mexico his permanent home. Currently, he lives with his wife and daughter in the high desert village of Placitas at the foot of the Sandia Mountains. In recent years, his practice has been guided by an approach he calls Nihil , a set of nine self-imposed principles...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 52 min
Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Yoshino’s Links: yoshinostudios.com yoshino.substack.com instagram.com/yoshinostudios x.com/yoshinostudios
Nov 01, 2024•11 min
“As an artist, I am interested in observing the transmutation process of unconscious material moving into conscious awareness. I work in painting, photography, writing, performance and video. My paintings utilize inner visions and depth psychology to form works layered with symbolism and metaphor. In photography, I employ an experimental process on film that focuses on Jungian Intuitive and Feeling typology. By blurring, altering or disrupting the straight forward information in a photograph, th...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 49 min
Sah D'Simone is a dynamic spiritual leader and global humanitarian who has made profound contributions to mental health, spirituality, and social welfare. As the founder of the Somatic Dance Institute and creator of the Somatic Activated Healing (SAH) Method, he has empowered millions to heal from trauma and foster spiritual growth. Sah's work extends across multiple fields, from his role as a spiritual teacher to his achievements as an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, published author, and ...
Oct 14, 2024•1 hr 17 min
When I was a child, I was repulsed by my father’s smoking addiction. I can still smell the acrid scent of his clothes, laden with a residual stench that never quite went away. He used to carry an old handkerchief in his front shirt pocket. Even at a young age, I thought it was odd when he would blow his nose into it and then stuff it back. I found it even more disgusting when he would spit on it and then subsequently wipe my face with the same putrid handkerchief. I felt a sense of betrayal ente...
Oct 12, 2024•8 min
Jia Sung is a Singaporean Chinese artist and educator whose practice spans painting, artist books, textiles, printmaking, writing, and translation. Drawing on motifs from Chinese mythology and Buddhist iconography, Sung uses the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert conventional archetypes of femininity, queerness and otherness. Her recent work explores threads of ecofeminism, ethnoecology, the ecological capacities of the body, invasive species as family, and the potential...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 38 min
Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Yoshino’s Links: yoshinostudios.com yoshino.substack.com instagram.com/yoshinostudios twitter.com/yoshinostudios
Sep 22, 2024•33 min
“Born in the UK I now live and work in Los Angeles. I studied fine art at UCA just outside London in the early 90s then moved to Italy for 7 years to immerse myself in classical art. On my return to London I started a successful fashion career that took me around the world, shooting for esteemed clients and magazines for 15 years. In 2013 I decided to return to fine art. This coincided with a move to Los Angeles, where I built a studio practice that broadened my horizons to include sculpture, pa...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Justin Tyler Close (b. 1984, Toronto, Canada) is an award-winning director, photographer & visual artist. Justin founded the internationally distributed arts publication The Lab Magazine and was the active editor-in-chief/creative director from 2010-2018. The interview magazine featured artists, designers, filmmakers, and activists such as Marina Abramovic, Wes Anderson and Noam Chomsky. In 2020, Justin created his audio-visual installation titled The Fifty Eleven Project, which was exhibite...
Aug 27, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Rose Ides is an artist from San Diego specializing in veristic surrealism, and a writer exploring the sociology of the arts in the United States. With a background in sociology, education, public health, and art, her work aims to participate in creative liberation and artistic compassion. She has published two illustrative projects with Running Press, the Oracle of Pluto deck and the illustrated astrological compendium The Cosmic Symposium, which you can pick up at all major book retailers. You ...
Aug 12, 2024•52 min
Erik Davis, PhD, is an author, award-winning journalist, sometimes podcaster, and popular speaker based in San Francisco. He is the author of 6 books which include: Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium (MIT Press) High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the 70s (MIT Press/Strange Attractor Press). Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (Yeti, 2010). The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), with photographs by Mic...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Explore the intersection of tarot, artistic creativity, and technical innovation in The Artist Decoded Tarot, a first-of-its-kind deluxe deck and guidebook set from author of Amenti Oracle Jennifer Sodini and artist Yoshino. Jennifer Sodini is an artist, writer, speaker, and producer whose creative endeavors span various realms of art and spirituality. She is the author of Amenti Oracle Feather Heart Deck and Guidebook and Everyday Amenti, and the co-creator of the Modern Nirvana Oracle. Jennife...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 4 min
John Wentz is a contemporary artist whose work is an exploration of process and technique. Working within the classical idiom of the human figure, his goal is to reduce and simplify the image to its core fundamentals: composition, color, and mark-making. Paint application and brush strokes are broad and simplified as a means to connect and convey these ideas to the viewer with an abstract sensibility. John was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His interest in art began at the age of...
Apr 14, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Tim Bettinson is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter and producer most recognized for creating and living behind the lustful, ambient guise of Vancouver Sleep Clinic. Across his catalogue, elements of anthemic indie rock, intimate R&B, and sophisticated folk provide a sweeping film soundtrack for Bettinson’s gentle vocal and expansive storytelling. Emerging from his native Brisbane, Australia on the strength of a series of singles including “Someone To Stay," “Middle of Nowhere," “The Wire,” and...
Mar 22, 2024•1 hr 47 min
Iranian-American filmmaker Saman Kesh has the most Vimeo staff picks, ever. He attributes this accolade to excessive consumption of rocket fuel and a knack for combining the human experience with a healthy dose of controlled chaos. After his music videos won him YDA Silver at Cannes and two Best Video at SXSW, his foray into advertising was an epic international Superbowl spot for Taco Bell. Since then, he has worked with major brands like Zoom, Google, Citibank, Uber, and most recently picked u...
Mar 11, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Daniele Bolelli is a writer, martial artist, university professor, and podcaster. He was born in Italy and currently lives in Los Angeles. Topics discussed in this episode: Daniele’s podcasts History on Fire and The Drunken Taoist (00:05:55) Daniele’s writing practice (00:08:51) Family and navigating personal struggles (00:15:03) The origin of Daniele’s passion for history (00:30:59) Reflections on legacy (00:35:02) Unpacking success, values, and the nature of quality (00:40:46) The complexities...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 57 min
Yoshino is a multi-hyphenate artist and the host of Artist Decoded. Yoshino’s essay “Photo Roulette” can be read at Yoshino’s Diary on Substack . Yoshino’s Links: yoshinostudios.com yoshino.substack.com instagram.com/yoshinostudios twitter.com/yoshinostudios...
Dec 28, 2023•6 min
Wesley Stringer (b. 1985) was born in Oklahoma City and has worked as a photographer for the past 13 years. Stringer began photographing while a BFA student at the University of Oklahoma. His practice is concerned with the natural environment, both in its untouched state, as well as how it relates to the spaces people occupy. The printed image is as important to Stringer’s work as the physical and textural presence: his photographs frequently take the shape of handmade books or boxes. In additio...
Dec 23, 2023•1 hr 10 min
James “Munky” Shaffer is best known as co-founder and guitarist for American rock band Korn. With a career spanning three decades, his latest project Venera ventures into experimental electronic territory. Venera L.A.-based James Shaffer and Atlanta-based Chris Hunt converged as Venera in early 2022 in Downtown Los Angeles while working on songs for singer Xhoana X. Their kindred interest and backgrounds in dramatic texture, electronics, and experimentation inspired an improvisation-based record...
Nov 30, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Paul Yoon is the author of four previous works of fiction: Once the Shore, which was a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year; and Run Me to Earth, which was one of Time magazine’s Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in the Hudson Valley, New York. ArtistDecoded.com Paul’s Website The Hive an...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Johan Van Mullem (Belgian painter born in 1959) persisted in his youthful search for wrinkled faces, seeking the beauty he recognized in an experience engraved on the faces and in the hands. Since then, the face remains the major subject of his work but over time reversing the imprint of it on his own face while these subjects seem to rejuvenate, disappearing or emerging in a halo of light in old-fashioned sfumato, offering the gaze an escape into the world of emotion, because Johan van Mullem's...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 38 min
Jacqueline Castel is an internationally award-winning director, screenwriter, and curator based in NYC. Her short film work has been featured at more than fifty festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, BAMcinemaFest, Sitges, and Fantasia. She has written for and directed cult auteurs John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and collaborated on a film with David Lynch for his Festival of Disruption in 2018. Her most recent short film, a portrait of Cannes award-winning actor Caleb Landry...
Sep 08, 2023•1 hr 26 min
