Mural artist Hiroyasu Tsuri (TWOONE) was the very first guest on the BenchTalk art career podcast ~ ten years ago, on a rooftop in Melbourne with a dictaphone and no plan.

Today he's one of the most compelling working artists in the world — painting large-scale murals across Japan, Malaysia, Morocco and Hong Kong, living in rural Italy and building an art career entirely on his own terms.

In this artist interview, I sit back down with Hiroyasu a decade later to talk about what it really takes to build a sustainable art career ~ the creative philosophy, the long game and why embracing what you can't control might be the most important thing a professional artist can do.

A decade later, Hiroyasu is living in a farmhouse in rural Italy, painting monumental walls across Malaysia, Morocco, Hong Kong and Japan and preparing for a major gallery exhibition in Victoria responding to the Ukiyo-e collection at Latrobe Regional Gallery. The work has expanded. The life has grown. And yet, he'll tell you himself, he still doesn't feel like he's mastered his own technique.

That's not a confession. That's the whole philosophy.

In this special anniversary episode, Hiroyasu and I sit back down together and talk about what a decade in the art world actually looks like from the inside. The creative philosophy that drives the work, what happens when you stop trying to fix your mistakes and start incorporating them, why Hiroyasu deliberately paints walls anyone can walk past rather than spaces only art people enter and what staying curious has done for his career that chasing mastery never could.

In this episode we explore:

⚡️The calligraphy lesson Hiroyasu learned as a kid in Japan and how it became the foundation of his entire practice
⚡️Why he deliberately works with tools he can't fully control ~ and what that produces
⚡️How moving from Berlin to a small Italian village changed the way he works and finds inspiration
⚡️What murals do for communities that galleries simply can't
⚡️The moment a byproduct became the product ~ how his lightbox series was born entirely by accident
⚡️Walking between paintings: why action stimulates more ideas than sitting and thinking ever will
⚡️Where Hiroyasu is headed next

If you've ever wondered what 10 years as a professional artist actually looks like - then this is it.

🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts
📺 Watch the full episode on YouTube

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HOST: Tom Gerrard

✦ IG | @artcareeracademy and @tom-gerrard
✦ Watch on Youtube | @artcareeracademy
✦ Website | artcareeracademy.com and tom-gerrard.com

GUEST: Hiroyasu Tsuri (TWOONE)

✦ Instagram | @t_w_o_o_n_e
✦ Website | https://hiroyasutsuri.com/

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