Studio Visit & Interview with Silent
By John Vochatzer
I first met Silent in 2019, and at the time I had no idea who he was or that he was even an artist. At that time I was working as an on-site resident manager at a nearby building in the Tenderloin, and he was one of the many residents who came through and then left at the end of their yearlong lease. A few years later, on an off-day here at the gallery, I was surprised to find my old neighbor knocking at the door of the gallery asking if he could come in and see the exhibit and introduce himself and his art to me. I think it took us both a moment to place where we remembered the other from, but once we did we were both glad for the opportunity to reconnect, under new circumstances and different sides of our identities.
As I’ve gotten to know him since, I’ve found Silent has a background and a history quite unlike any other artist I’ve ever met. Half Japanese, and half Argentine, he was born in the United States but grew up in Tokyo where he began to discover his calling as an artist through the graffiti scene he became immersed in during his adolescence. Being sent to live with relatives in Buenos Aires as he entered adulthood, Silent there discovered the world of psychotropic substances and shamanism—which further honed and sharpened his artistic vision and gave it a new purpose and direction.
After moving to the Bay Area originally to attend the now shuttered SFAI, Silent now lives and works in Oakland where on top of growing psilocybin mushrooms, he also works laboriously on some of the most patient and meticulous work I’ve seen in recent memory. Spending months or even years on single paintings, he aspires to bring the shamanic visions he experiences while hallucinating into the physical world to share with others. I recently caught up with him and saw his work space and also visited a few of his first professionally done murals completed in Oakland—and can say I’m truly impressed by the scope of his vision and excited to see his continued ascent as an artist.
Interview
Hey Silent! Thanks for hanging out and giving me the opportunity to learn more about you and your work. For our readers, can you give us a little introduction about who you are and the type of work you do?
Thanks, John. I'm honored to be interviewed by San Francisco's local Moth Belly Gallery to share my work and connect with people.
I am an Oakland-based artist. I was born in Seattle between my Japanese Mother and Argentine Father. We moved to Tokyo, Japan when I was 5 and I grew up there until graduating high school. The school I attended was a unique liberal school strong in the arts. I started skating and doing graffiti, being influenced by my friends at school. I also started smoking weed and taking LSD which was definitely illegal there. I was soon after starting to learn the effects of psychedelics on life and art.
Drawing was always a thing I loved. When I moved to my grandma’s house in Buenos Aires at the age of 18, I had my first spiritual enlightenment taking a high dose of Magic mushrooms and decided to seriously pursue my art career. After practicing mushrooms and paintings for 2 years in Buenos Aires, I moved to San Francisco to really study Art at SFAI. I have been producing art in the Bay Area ever since.
I will talk a little about how my artwork… I am a Shamanic Artist who explores the ultra state of consciousness by using magic mushrooms. I paint the visions I see in my ceremonies onto canvases. I want to show my visions to a lot of people all over the world. I want to put huge murals on buildings and put my paintings in galleries and museums. My artistic practice starts with seeing a vision in my ceremony. I sketch it out first to map out the image and use that as a reference to paint it on a canvas; taking months or sometimes years to recreate the vision that I saw.
You have a pretty interesting background, being half Japanese and half Argentine, and spending time in both of these places throughout your life. Can you talk a little bit about your different cultural backgrounds and how they influence your work?
Growing up in the huge city of Tokyo was a special experience. I loved learning about their culture, eating good food, and having a convenient lifestyle. As far as I know, hip-hop culture, art, and party scenes are all pretty dope there. All the attention to detail and strict rules made me a particularly sensitive person when it comes to art.
In Argentina, life was quite different. The kicked back Latino vibe and warmer interactions between people were some things I fell in love with. Like I said earlier, I had my spiritual enlightenment in my grandma's house taking a lot of mushrooms that I had bought from my uncle. My family is very special to let me do what I do. I was introduced to shamanism there down in South America through family and friend shamans. This period of time informed my ideas as an artist.
You moved to the Bay Area to attend school at SFAI—being part of the last group of students before the school closed its doors for good last year. How was your experience there?
SFAI was a great Art school with awesome people there. I was able to experiment with different kinds of mediums such as printmaking and digital art. I think the most important thing was to have the option to express whatever I wanted. Classes were structured on the individual's ideas and were focused on developing them. I made a few important friends that I still keep in touch with.
Some of your biggest roots as an artist are from getting into graffiti in Tokyo as a teenager. How did this period of your life shape you as an artist? And how would you compare the graffiti cultures in Japan as compared to on the West Coast here in the US?
Doing graffiti in any city comes with its own consequences but Tokyo is on another level. Anything illegal is not tolerated by Japanese people, Therefore they will call the cops immediately. Many police on the street will respond right away which increases the chances of getting into trouble. Because you don't have a lot of time to paint, there are not many colorful pieces that take time. Streets are covered in stickers, tags, and throw-ups. There are so many security cameras around to catch people doing stuff.
I got arrested multiple times as a high school student. Experiencing being locked up as a minor was not good but many friends have had the same experience and some of them are still in there. Looking back to that period of time in 2015 and 2016, I was just starting to learn what life was really about. Doing graffiti is a lifestyle that I picked up being influenced by my Japanese friends and that created a foundation for me to become an artist.
I have been writing in The States for 5 years now. I think the size of the graffiti scene herer is 10 times larger than Tokyo. I haven't even got a glimpse of it. There are so many more graffiti writers, crews, and street artists and there is much more land to cover. Painting in the Bay Area has been chill. Cops could drive by and a lot of them don't seem to care. Maybe they have more serious stuff going on or they just don't like to work.
One of the most notable aspects of your work is the level and attention to detail. What do you enjoy the most about creating work with such high levels of repetitive pattern and detail?
For me, the sacred geometry I see in my visions is always satisfying to paint. It feels like connecting the dots and assembling the pieces of the puzzle. I am a perfectionist so I will put in as much time as needed to make my paintings look like how I want them. That's why some of my art pieces take years to finish. I have a 4 x 5 feet canvas that took 2 years to complete. My pieces are all hand painted so it is not as perfect as computers but I use tools to make them look crispy. I find the beauty in mastering a technique by hand but at the same time, I am interested in learning more about digital media to use it as a tool to cut time and produce more work.
Your work is also very psychedelic in nature, and this corresponds to an interest you have in shamanism and its relation to entheogenic plants and substances. Can you talk a little bit about this part of your life? And how does it influence the art you make?
There are not many experiences in life that you think you're dead and come back to life with the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and find yourself crying on the floor thankful you’re still alive. My 5-gram mushroom experiences are like that. Since the first one I wanted to paint them and show these visions to other people.
One of my big influences is Terence Mckenna, an American anthropologist that talked about the Stoned Ape Hypothesis and taking 5 dried grams of mushrooms in silent darkness. While studying about him and taking mushrooms I found meaning in the connection through my artist name SILENT.
Taking Psychedelics is like magic to me. It cured my life. It is not for everybody, and it is not the ultimate cure medicine for depression. But psychedelics can be a great tool in life to make you look at certain things in different ways. My purpose for being an artist is to spread the healing I experience in life by taking psychedelics.
You also grow psilocybin mushrooms on the side, want to tell us a little bit about the mushrooms? And how did you first start getting into growing them?
Since my uncle educated me about mushrooms and after discovering Terence McKenna, my high appetite for mushrooms was always a problem for me because I eat so much. I like growing plants and I always wanted to become a mycology specialist and to be able to supply myself, so I started researching how to grow.
I was able to start my practice 5 years ago when I moved to SF in 2018. I kept upgrading my mycology techniques along with my art practice and now I just want to keep improving and providing more content to the world.
It was cool seeing your new recently completed murals in West Oakland, and learning that these were your first (solicited) outdoor murals. How was the process of creating your first murals? And what kind of mural opportunities are you interested in in the future?
I have been working as a mural painter for the last couple of years to build up my experience and I did quite a few gigs associating with my good artist friend Darin. I have worked with Bay area-based mural company, ABG group and am currently attending their public art classes partnered with the city of Oakland.
I am stoked about these 2 murals I got to put up on Martin Luther King Jr Way in Oakland this May.
“Discount Market“ mural, 2627 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94612
First I saw a blank wall with tags on a Market. I went into the store and asked the store manager to talk about what usually happens to a blank wall in Oakland. He gave me the job and I was able to incorporate my style with what the client wanted.
While I was painting this mural I got multiple other opportunities and one especially exciting project was with a local mushroom chocolate bar company Oakland Bliss. I painted 2 sides of a second-story building with Bliss lettering and my patterns in the background. It was a challenge to figure out how to use a scissor lift for the first time. It took about 16 days of painting to complete the entire project.
Now that I have even more experience and a profile of completed murals in multiple countries, I want to keep learning in this field, upgrading my skills to larger projects. I am open to any kind of mural project in the future. I’m interested in working with a fabricator to use different mediums and take my art to the next level.
“Bliss Mural” 2531 Martin Luther King Jr Way Oakland, CA 94612
Where else would you like to be taking your art? And what’s up next for you?
I recently came back from a trip from visiting my family in Buenos Aires and stretching my legs in Brazil for the first time. I had an Art show “Invasion” at Local Support in Palermo, Buenos Aires, and displayed one of my masterpieces “Invasion”. My sister is also an artist in NYC and she did live tattoo sessions. We traveled together and made new friends. Paraty, Rio de Janeiro is where I stayed in Brazil. A small beach town with a jungle in the back. We made a strong bond with the family and friends who were receiving us there.We painted a mural in front of one of the restaurants they own and painted the skate park of Paraty.
One of the most incredible experiences I had there was the Ayahuasca ceremony we did with the family. I saw the being of the great creator of everything. The orchestrator of nature. God, 1, Akashic record, Spirit. Whatever people call it. I understand the truth and meanings for myself in life. Perhaps not understand fully, but I see it more clearly. Ayahuasca washed away and cured our bodies and spirit. Everyone in that ceremony is a different person in a good way after the experience. I saw this great vision, so I need to paint it now that I’m back in the Bay.
My short-term goal is to get into more shows, paint more murals, produce more work in the Bay Area, and eventually do a solo show. I have never been to Europe so I really want to travel there and see the culture and check out the museums. I’m looking forward to more opportunities to get involved with the Bay Area psychedelics or art movements.
