There have been many iterations of the man we know as Nehemiah Cisneros, but right now, in the most moment, he is most himself. If you know Nehemiah, he is a thoughtful, insightful and evolving figure in art who is a filmmaker in a painters' body. We met him as AUGOR, the graffiti writer who took over Los Angles in the late aughts with billboards and walls that were just as influenced by comics, video games and low brow art as it was the history of lettering and monikers. He was fresh air in a scene that was already full of major creative forces: SABER, REVOK, RETNA and the MSK crew members. Cisneros was the young buck making a name, with LA in his blood and something theatric in his vision.
Across a few art schools, going through addiction and his own "trouble" that we mention in this podcast, Cisneros found a new voice in the art departments of Santa Monica City College, Kansas City Art Institute and then an MFA at UCLA. What that voice does is create a vision of his youth in Los Angeles and the aesthetic of a city of narratives, literally in its DNA. Cisneros, even now with a body of work on its way to Josh Lilley in London, has taken a life of influence from film, arcades, city streets, low brow and fine art into a beautiful and often overwhelmingly dense series of paintings.
In this conversation on The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Evan Pricco and Cisneros talk about life after an MFA, his time working in the arts and studying painting, how Mark Ryden influenced his early years and how now he is looking to Theodore Gericault, Max Ernst, gamer culture and Black Exploitation films for his new works. Off the the "goon cave"...
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Radio Juxtapoz' Unibrow podcast is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, Evan Pricco. Episode 156 was recorded in Los Angeles on March 5, 2025 Follow us on @radiojuxtapoz
