David Furst: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst in for Alison Stewart. In 2021, Australian comedian Sam Kissajukian decided to quit the stand-up scene and move into a former industrial cake factory. He also decided he was going to start a new career as a visual artist. Over the course of six months, Sam created more than 300 paintings. What Sam didn't realize at the time was that he was in the midst of a manic state. Later, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Now Sam is combining his comedic and artistic skills in the one-man show, 300 Paintings at the Vineyard Theater in Manhattan.

Over the course of about 90 minutes, Sam walks audiences through a slideshow of his work. The artwork helps Sam tell the story of what was going on with him over those six months, all with a generous sense of humor about the whole thing. Sam still paints, and in addition to seeing his show at the Vineyard, you can also see some of his work on display there. If you want to check it out during this conversation, you can see some examples on our Instagram. That's @allofitwnyc. 300 Paintings running at the Vineyard Theater through February 23rd. Sam Kissajukian joins us now. Welcome.

Sam Kissajukian: Thank you, David.

David Furst: This all started after you decided to quit stand-up. Why quit?

Sam Kissajukian: I think quitting is a very important part of life. I'd been doing stand-up for 10 years, and I'd heard of this thing called finding your voice. I didn't know who I was in my mid-20s, and I always felt that maybe stand-up would be the way that I could find myself. You hear that if you find yourself, the audience will respond a certain way. I think everybody wants to feel seen.

I think I was trying to do that through stand-up, but then after 10 years, I realized that stand-up comedy is mostly just a collaboration with drunk people, which is a terrible way to make art. If they don't like what you're doing, they heckle or you feel like you're wasting their time. I think I just started trying to give them what they wanted, and then I lost my voice. I stopped being myself and I started just really being a comedian.

Then I just started hating being on stage and what I'd become. I felt like the hat of comedy had fused to my head and I didn't know how to untangle. I think the only solution was to quit. That didn't help because I didn't have any other skill sets. It leaves a massive gap in your soul, in your cv, when you leave behind a passion.

David Furst: We hear some stand-up comics say that they got into stand-up comedy to work through some issues on stage. It's tough when the audience is heckling you or something like that. That doesn't seem like it would help you work through any issues.

Sam Kissajukian: No, not at all. It's not even heckling. I think if you have empathy, you respect people. They've come out, they're here, maybe they got a babysitter. It's a lot of energy and time and money, so you want to honor why they're there. Sometimes the Venn diagram of what you want and what they want just never overlaps.

David Furst: 300 Paintings. Can I just stop for a moment and focus on that number? That seems incredible.

Sam Kissajukian: Yes. I've always believed in quantity over quality. You can tell by the name of the show. I don't make as many. I still paint as much as possible now. I've continued the practice, but I think when I quit comedy, it was an identity that got taken away. I was in my mid-30s, I was broke and I was going to move into a regular house. Then I abandoned that idea and picked the old industrial cake factory and just decided if I just lock myself in here and just decided.

How I decided to become an artist is very unusual. I think most people, if you go to art school, and after you see the show, you think, yes, you should have done that. What happened to me is I was unpacking some boxes and I found a beret. I don't own a beret.

David Furst: A beret. Yes.

Sam Kissajukian: I just put it on and I looked in the mirror and just the whole of art history channeled through me.

David Furst: Oh, and I'm an artist now.

Sam Kissajukian: I just looked at myself and I was like, "You're broke, you're in your mid-30s, all you've done is fail for the last 10 years. You're in an abandoned cake factory." I also thought it was very funny to become an artist because being a comedian in your mid-30s is actually very sad to your friends and family, but telling your parents that you're quitting comedy to become an artist is objectively funny.

I was amused by it and I just started painting every day. What it allowed me to do is have a discourse with myself because I felt like I was before creating things in front of people, but then holding back because I was thinking about what they wanted. For the first time I thought, when I make an artwork, then, now the artwork can be the performer and I can be the audience. I created this discourse between my subconscious and conscious mind. so it just allowed me to express the whole back catalog of ideas inside me that had been dormant over the last 36 years.

David Furst: It's almost like you're with the audience as one of their chosen critics when you're talking about and looking at one of your paintings on stage.

Sam Kissajukian: Yes, sometimes.

[laughter]

David Furst: It's a fascinating transition, going from stand-up comedy to a career as a visual artist. You also say that there's a certain shame around deciding to be an artist.

Sam Kissajukian: What do you mean by that? Shame?

David Furst: Is that how you've put it?

Sam Kissajukian: I don't think it is a shame. As you mean being a visual artist?

David Furst: Yes. Choosing that as a career.

Sam Kissajukian: Choosing that as a career. I don't think so.

David Furst: I don't. Let me just personally say I don't feel that way.

Sam Kissajukian: No. I mean as a career, yes. I don't think of it as a career. Honestly, I try my very hardest not to identify as being an artist. I think even you identify as any profession, then you start to become very aware of the rules of what you should do for that career. I even think about it now. The show that I do deals with very serious issues, but I do employ a lot of comedy. I think comedy is an amazing vehicle, almost like a Trojan horse, to keep people laughing.

David Furst: Oh thaat's ineresting.

Sam Kissajukian: Then you can feed more difficult ideas that might raise people's barriers. I think the same way with painting. I just think of as a communication channel. For me, pairing visual art and verbal communication, and superimposing them allows you to be more specific when talking about very ineffable ideas around mental illness. When you say is there a shame, I don't know. Everybody just does what they do. I think really every artist is different. I might joke about those things, but I love artists.

David Furst: You're talking about some very painful moments in your life in this show. Not shying away from anything. This show invites people to laugh at parts of your mental illness. At one point, you explicitly tell people it's okay to laugh. How does that feel to make people laugh at such a vulnerable part of you?

Sam Kissajukian: For me, as much as the show is my story-- I'd quit performing for a year and the only reason I came back to it is I got invited to do a show and I didn't want to do my stand-up comedy material from a year ago. I'd just been put on medication and because of the six-month manic episode, my memory was very damaged.

David Furst: Really?

Sam Kissajukian: Yes. My ability to think quickly was stunted for a while. Just out of necessity, I felt like anytime I explained to people any part of what happened during the manic episode because they don't have the logic of what happened before, they just thought I made it up. I thought I wanted to tell that story. I just invited all the people that I'd spoken to during that time that didn't understand.

I just went through the paintings chronologically. It allowed me to explain to people the inside of what I went. I thought it was so specific, but weirdly, people connected with very different parts. It's gotten to the point where [unintelligible 00:08:55] I am sharing my story. I just try and put as much information. The goal of the show is to show people as intimately how I think. What I've realized is people relate to very specific, different parts. I think it honors the parts that we have inside that I think the most important thing in life really is to feel seen and think in your life how many people truly see you. It's probably only a handful. Of that, maybe only parts. I think the show honors these parts of ourselves that are seen.

David Furst: Our need to feel seen. It sounds like the show really grew very organically-

Sam Kissajukian: Very organically.

David Furst: -from you having these conversations with people who were maybe confused about what was going on during that time. Maybe even explaining it to yourself as you're talking about some memory issues and using these paintings as guideposts along the way.

Sam Kissajukian: Definitely. I was very lucky. Being in a manic episode you don't have the best memory afterwards, and it feels like this other person did this thing to you. The fact that I painted every day is I unconsciously documented my mental states. It's really helped allow me to re-access that with a lot of clear memory. I find it incredibly helpful.

David Furst: At one point during that time, you started to mess with your own sleep schedule to pull yourself deeper into this creative process, perhaps. How did that affect you creatively but also physically?

Sam Kissajukian: Well, that's what triggered the manic episode. When I'd started painting for a few weeks, I just thought, I don't want to-- I felt like once I start showing my art to people, I'm going to face the same problem that I did with comedy, because in comedy, I just wanted to give people what they wanted. Then I lost who I was, and then I hated comedy, and I quit. I thought that's going to happen with art.

I felt how do I make the most me thing that's independent of the ideas of good or bad? I thought, "I'm going to paint my subconscious." I thought, "I'll paint my dreams." I don't remember my dreams. I thought, "how do you remember your dreams?" I started flipping my sleep cycle by 12 hours. I'd go to bed at midnight. Two days later, I'd go to bed at midday, back and forth.

David Furst: Were you hoping to achieve some dream state where you were just living these dreams?

Sam Kissajukian: I was trying to create the waking sleep, like a lucid dream, so I could watch my dreams. Then when I was awake, I could dream in my mind, open my eyes, and it would flash on the surface, and I would paint that. Then at night, I'd watch my dreams and started incorporating what had happened during that day into the dream.

David Furst: What goes through your mind when you look at these paintings now?

Sam Kissajukian: It's very helpful for me. Especially with bipolar, I find it hard to feel seen when I'm on stage because the audience can only ever see me in the state that I'm in. Then the other two states of the depressive episodes I go through and the manic episodes. I've been in them so many times in my life that they are very familiar to me. They almost feel like a different persona. Now I just honor all three states like they are all part of me. Performance is limiting. Very helpful.

The audience can only see me in my state. Because I paint across all different states, the paintings allow me to show both myself and people seeing the exhibition. This is who I am across time. That's the only way that I can show people the totality of myself. It always starts with me. I can see myself, and it helps me integrate these different versions of me into one vessel.

David Furst: Wow. Do the paintings ever take a dark turn?

Sam Kissajukian: Sometimes they do. They used to more. Maybe I cleared a lot of that tension within it. I just allow it to go anywhere. My process of painting is I paint very quickly. I paint quite large works. They're usually around 6 to 8ft in height by about 4 to 7ft in width. I try and do it in a day. The goal is that I will make a mark-- It's very abstract expressionist. I'll make a mark and then I will emotionally respond to that mark, and it will build up.

I feel like your history is stored in your nervous system, so how you respond to certain colors and shapes is influenced by that, and your conscious mind doesn't have access to it. I feel like by doing this process, I'm kind of transcribing my emotional state on that day. That allows me to then after the fact, to consciously recognize what was actually happening, and then I have an understanding. It's like when you see a photo of yourself when you're 20 years old and you see the fashion you were wearing, you can see all your insecurities. You need time and distance from that and the paintings give me that.

David Furst: Sometimes I look at those old pictures, I'm like, 'Who is that person?"

Sam Kissajukian: [laughs] Yes, exactly.

David Furst: We're speaking with Australian comedian Sam Kissajukian, a comedian and painter, and lots of other things. The name of your new show, I have to make sure that I say the name of it correctly. It's happening at the vineyard. It's called 300 Paintings. I still can't believe it's 300 in that time. How did the people in your life react to this period of huge artistic output? Did they view this as a wonderful thing, or did they feel like, wow, we need to reach out? How did they respond?

Sam Kissajukian: After seeing the show? Or do you just mean in general?

David Furst: Just during the period when you were creating so much work, this 300 Paintings.

Sam Kissajukian: I was very private about it. I wasn't really seeing people during that time. It was an intense period of self-isolation. I think a lot of people didn't know. I think the things people knew about was that if they'd speak to me over the phone, I think they knew, they were like, "Wow, Sam's speaking very quickly." They'd tell me things. They're like, "Hey, Sam, I think you need to slow down." I'd be like, "I think you need to speed up. I'd hang up." I think people were mostly worried. It was only after the fact that I started showing the art.

David Furst: Did you feel like in those moments that you were not okay, or did you have a moment where you felt like, "Whoa, I do need to slow down. I need to check on myself."

Sam Kissajukian: I never felt I needed to slow down.

David Furst: Interesting.

Sam Kissajukian: When you have bipolar and you experience depressive episodes, you remember that you can function really well. There is this, you miss the mania. Even though I didn't know I had bipolar, but just suddenly I could start thinking very quickly. I was like, "This can't be bad. I'm going through a creative enlightenment. If this is bad, then how am I able to make all these paintings and build out all these new ideas?"

I went through a whole phase where I was inventing things. I just followed it until maybe in the later stages, I started to think where does this go? Can your mind just get faster and faster and faster? I think I thought maybe it would end badly. Then I felt if I make so much work, a lifetime body of work, then at least something will come of it. People go, "Oh, that was bad but look what he made."

David Furst: You can be seen [unintelligible 00:16:22] [crosstalk]

Sam Kissajukian: Just leave something physical behind. I think in mania, no one will ever understand the internal mechanisms to have physical objects from that period. I felt like it was a trade-off, some benefit.

David Furst: Wow. How did you feel when you finally got a bipolar diagnosis?

Sam Kissajukian: It was scary. I felt I'd been labeled crazy. I thought it would define me, but it hasn't been the case. It gives me an additional viewpoint now. I can see the world from my perspective or the diagnostic lens of bipolar and can make a collaborative decision. It allows me to look after my mental health. Even just knowing I have bipolar allows me to prevent myself doing things that will make me manic. Because I don't get as manic, I don't get as depressed.

Because I don't get as depressed. It was actually the depression that would cause the mania because I know I can function, and then I'd be in the depression I didn't want to get out of it. I'd do things like not sleep. Just that knowledge alone has allowed me to exist in the middle and be more consistent. Obviously, both my mental health and my ability to perform and create has been really enhanced since then. I feel very grateful.

David Furst: It was enhanced. It was not difficult to reenter the world after that. Or was it? At first.

Sam Kissajukian: I think at first, it probably took about two years to properly get to a point of recovery. I think it has permanently affected my mind and my physical health. I think the benefits of just being in a more centered state has been very helpful. It doesn't affect the creativity.

David Furst: You're painting now.

Sam Kissajukian: I paint while I'm doing the show. They've given me the green room to paint, and then over the Christmas break, I couldn't go back to Australia because of my visa. For that month, the Vineyard gave me a painting studio, which I produced a bunch more work for this one. I think having gone through so much mania and depression, they almost are different personalities that have their own viewpoint and lens. Empathetically, whenever I'm making a work, I now have three different viewpoints that I can draw upon. I can paint and then switch to how I would see it in a depressed state or a manic state. I think having multiple perspectives can be very helpful for creativity.

David Furst: If any, what impact do you think the pandemic may have had on your mental state during that time? You don't talk about it necessarily in the show, but this-- The painting that you did happen in 2021, is that right?

Sam Kissajukian: Yes, in June. That's when Covid ended. It really started tailing off in Australia. We could move around quite a lot, and people were existing back in the world, and that's where I just committed to isolation. More than that, I think the show works better post-Covid because I think anyone with underlying mental health issues, I think Covid and that isolation really brought it to the surface. It's put a huge strain on the mental health industry and psychiatrists. I think the show has found more of an audience because people are ready to have that conversation.

David Furst: It's great to have that audience and to be seen. I think it's really exciting that we started this conversation talking about you quitting stand-up comedy, but here you are returning to the stage, doing this very cool show.

Sam Kissajukian: Yes, I feel very grateful.

David Furst: How has the audience responded to the show and to your painting?

Sam Kissajukian: I think Australians are very, very funny but there's a difference. We don't say what we mean. We imply what we're not saying. In New York, I think people are very direct and they really say what they mean. When I put up the bipolar traits of a manic episode, I always say that you could probably replace the title bipolar with Living in New York. I feel like this city oppresses people and it's so full of-- People come here with like an idea and ego and it just beats you down and builds you back up and you have so many identity changes.

David Furst: I'm sorry, we have to wrap up, but comedian Sam Kissajukian, your one-man show, 300 Paintings is happening at the Vineyard Theater in Manhattan. Sam, thank you so much for joining us.

Sam Kissajukian: Thank you so much, David.