Lo-Fi Podcast
John Wentz
John Wentz talks about process, practice and context with artists, musicians & film makers that he meets while living abroad in France.
- 1 hour 32 minutesEpisode 28: Rodney Ewing w/ Guest Host Cindy Shih (United States) - "Stories That Don't Get Told"
"While debating demanding topics such as race, religion, or war, it is simple enough to become polarized, and see situations in either black or white, right or wrong. These tactics may satisfy individuals whose position depends on employing policies or implementing strategies that promote specific agendas for a specific constituency. As an artist, it is more important to create a platform that moves us past alliances, and begins a dialogue that informs, questions, and in some cases even satires our divisive issues. Without this type of introspection, we are in danger of having apathy rule our senses. We can easily succumb to a national mob mentality, and ignore individual accounts and memories. With my work I am creating an intersection where body and place, memory and fact, are merged to reexamine human interactions and cultural conditions to create a narrative that requires us to be present and profound."
Subjects Discussed In This Episode:
- Real-time narratives and artmaking with immediacy
- Art reflecting the times we live in
- His recent mural “Correspondence” in SF
- Working with 100 Days Action
- Issues of identity
- Compulsion to create art
- Art being not what you do but what you are
- The intersection of art and personal identity
- Working with Collective Genus
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
23 September 2020, 3:31 pm - 1 hour 58 minutesEpisode 27: Martine Johanna (Netherlands) - "Opening the Bell Jar"
Martine’s works are vivid and autobiographical depicting both direct realism and non-objective abstract elements. In this episode, we discuss her beginnings in street art, living and working with ADD, the personal and impersonal elements of her work, delving into side projects such as her illustrated book due out in November and her explorations as a vocalist in creating music.
Subjects Discussed In This Episode:
- Working in Acrylics
- Pointillism
- Starting out in the fashion industry
- Living a life that's not your own
- Beginnings as a street artist
- The benefits of working with galleries
- Seeing your work in hindsight
- Painting autobiographically
- Exploring outside projects
- Becoming a vocalist
- Her upcoming book release this November
- Her upcoming solo exhibition at Massey Klein this September
- An upcoming exhibition with Hashimoto Contemporary in Spring 2021
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
6 July 2020, 1:25 pm - 1 hour 39 minutesEpisode 26: Steven Assael (United States) - "Questioning Existence" - Swap-Cast with Artist Decoded Podcast
Steven Assael was born in New York, New York in 1957. He attended Pratt Institute and presently teaches at The School of Visual Arts in New York. Assael balances naturalism with a romanticism that permeates the figures and surroundings of his paintings and drawings. The focus of his work is the human figure, either individually or in a group, rendered in glowing relief by gentle beams of warm and cool light. Steven Assael’s classical talents are as rare as they are essential to the diverse art world of the 21st Century.
For online teaching/mentorship please contact Steven at [email protected]
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
- Seeking out advantages within painting and connecting with people during quarantine
- Separation bringing us together
- The intimate process of working with models and how they directly or indirectly affect the painting
- Allowing for change within his overall creative vision
- Teaching painting over Zoom
- What makes a good teacher
- The search for finding the right questions to ask
- Experience motivating change and providing a renewal of what you want
- Creating situations of exploration for oneself
- Extracting the right vocabulary while creating
- The element of control and power that children express when drawing different objects
- Understanding the dynamic of copying a subject while painting, and how that evolves into a deeper exploration of shapes, tone, atmospheres, and the figure itself.
- Giving breadth to form
- A great work of art being infectious
- The nature of romanticism
- Working from life being an “inquiry into your own humanness”
- The idea of questioning and rebelling within a visual outlook
- Human nature
- The environment of New York throughout the last forty years, and how it has changed
- The importance of theatre and the work of actors
- Symmetry and asymmetry, and its importance within artform and observation
- “Everything is everything” aproach to life
- Learning what to see flowing into learning how to paint
- Nature being sporadic, and how we must become “like water” in order to succeed in our strategies in life
- A commercialized outlook within the art world
- Art becoming entertainment
- Faith and doubt
- Questioning of spirituality and existenc
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
28 June 2020, 8:45 pm - 1 hour 54 minutesEpisode 25: Eddie Colla (United States) - "Atavisms"
Eddie Colla is a street artist, curator and photographer based in Oakland, Ca. However, given his love and need for travel, you could possibly say he’s based out of anywhere. His work is a synthesis of street art, collage, assemblage and video that crosses and transcends the barriers between the gallery walls and the public space. Mixing photography, paint, wheatpaste and other materials he picked up working odd jobs in his beginnings, Eddie’s work is a foreboding exploration, and reminder, of possible futures...even more so today.
In this episode, we talk about his beginnings in New Jersey and eventually enrolling in SVA. His then move from to California to attend CCAC in Oakland. We also touch upon his work in the advertising world as a photographer, the transition into his iconic work “Atavisms”, the inexplicable life changes that lead to his love for Paris and much more
In closing we talk about the upcoming online group show he organized with the help of Frederic Steimer, ‘Carpe Diem.’ On Saturday, June 20th.
Eddie attended the School of Visual Arts in New York and graduated from the California College of Arts with a BFA in photography/interdisciplinary fine arts in 1991. He began his artistic career as a photographer, working first for the New York Times and later countless magazines, record labels and ad agencies. 15 years later he has morphed into one who counters the all-pervasive nature of commercialism in public spaces.
Since 2005, his wheat-pastes and stencils can be found throughout public spaces in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Miami. Eddie's work first began to garner national recognition when his street art began incorporating images of Barack Obama throughout the 2008 Presidential election. His growing popularity landed him attention on internet blogs, features in six published books, and participation in the "Manifest Hope Art Gallery" shows at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and at the Presidential Inauguration in Washington D.C. His designs have been transformed many times over, from stickers, album and magazine covers.
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
17 June 2020, 5:56 pm - 1 hour 36 minutesEpisode 24: Nicole Hayden (United States) - "To Inform the Art"
In this episode, I had a great time talking with San Francisco-based painter/muralist Nicole Hayden. We talk about escaping the lockdown to paint boarded up shops which led to working with Paint the Void Project, working in a decorative studio in SF doing faux-finishing and interior murals. How these outside experiences inform her art, being precious with your art, WWE, pop culture in art and much more.
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
4 June 2020, 8:30 pm - 1 hour 52 minutesEpisode 23: Sergio Lopez (United States) - "Craft & Aesthetic"
In this episode, I had a great time talking with Sonoma-based painter Sergio Lopez. We hit upon a variety of topics including the value of art school, his new online painting course he has been building and releasing soon, co-hosting 'Waiting to Dry' Podcast, his new food review podcast 'A Bit Saucy' and much more.
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
18 May 2020, 1:19 pm - 1 hour 37 minutesEpisode 22: Raymond Bonilla (United States) - "Visual Language"
In this episode I have a good long talk with my friend Raymond Bonilla. I’ve know Ray for many many years, way back since art school. In this episode we reminisce a little bit about the talent we were surrounded by in school, his beginnings in illustration, the split into a fine artist, inspirations, a little technique and much more.
Raymond Bonilla is a nationally recognized illustrator and fine artist in Buffalo, NY. Raymond graduated from the State University in New York at Fredonia in 2005 with a degree in New Media and Illustration. He continued his studies at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco where he completed his Masters of Fine Art in 2009. He was awarded Best in Show in the Great Lakes Emerging Artist Competition, was a finalist in the Artists Magazine Annual Art Competition, has been awarded Gold Medals in advertising from both Society of Illustrators of New York and Los Angeles, and juried into the Communication Arts Illustration Annual. He currently lives in Buffalo, New York where he spends his time painting and teaching part-time at the State University of New York at Fredonia. He is represented by Abend Gallery in Denver, CO and Meibohm Fine Arts Gallery in East Aurora, NY.
Artists mentioned in this episode:
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
27 April 2020, 1:47 pm - 1 hour 30 minutesEpisode 21: Guro Skumsnes Moe (Norway) - "Resistance"
I have to say that even though the last 30 plus days have been a whirlwind of confusion, emotions and uncertainty, I feel extremely lucky because these last two episodes have been conversations with two musicians who I greatly admire and whose music is among my favorite. Last episode was Robin Wattie from Big Brave and this episode I’m really excited to bring you a conversation with Guro Skumsnes Moe from Norway who is involved with many projects but primarily her band MoE. I came across Moe only in the last year but was instantly taken by their raucous energy, elements of noise and punk and the growling vocals of their front woman Guro Skumsnes Moe. After digging through their discography, I came to find that Guro not only plays the electric bass but studied double bass, also plays Octabass and works with a multitude of noise and experimental groups like Sult, The Touchables and collaborates with other great sound artists such as Keiji Haino and Pain Jerk from Japan just to name a few.
In this episode, we talk about looking for different avenues amidst the Corona Virus Pandemic, her introduction to Bass at an early age, the recording and writing process, and more.
Artists mentioned in this episode:
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
24 April 2020, 3:15 pm - 1 hour 50 minutesEpisode 20: Robin Wattie (Canada) - "Compulsion, Exertion & Perhaps Love”
In this episode, I'm privileged to talk with artist, guitarist & vocalist Robin Wattie of Big Brave. We talk about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on touring musicians, the possible future of the music industry, the birthing of her band Big Brave with musicians Mathieu Ball and Tasy Hudson, vulnerability in writing lyrics and much more. This was an amazing and fun episode to record. Thank you Robin and Big Brave.
Song excerpt: "Holding Pattern" from Big Brave 'A Gaze Among Them'
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
17 April 2020, 6:26 pm - 1 hour 24 minutesEpisode 19: Joshua Lawyer (United States) - "To Learn Through Story"
In this episode, I talk with Artist, Muralist, & 1/2 of the podcast 'Waiting to Dry,': Joshua Lawyer. We discuss his beginnings as a graffiti artist turned painter, being an auto-didact, the importance of story in art and much more.
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
13 April 2020, 3:58 pm - 1 hour 31 minutesEpisode 18: Cindy Shih (United States) - "Art & Identity"
In this episode, I talk with my good friend and visual artist Cindy Shih. We touch on a myriad of topics including the effect of the Corona Virus in San Francisco, normalizing your life during these strange times, what the future may hold for artists and much more.
From her website:
"Cindy Shih was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Los Angeles with her family at the age of three. She moved to the Bay Area in 2005, and currently resides and works in San Francisco.
Drawing heavily from her early training in Chinese calligraphy, she uses techniques from brush painting, Italian fresco, and landscapes to touch upon issues of gender, race, and power."
Find us on all your favorite platforms including:
IG: @lofipod
10 April 2020, 5:03 pm - More Episodes? Get the App