“For me Coaching is an extension of my creative practice. What ‍is ‍coaching? ‍Coaching ‍is ‍“partnering with Clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” (ICF). ‍Coaching keeps the coachee in a space of agency at all times.

Coaching ‍differs ‍from ‍mentoring ‍because ‍it ‍is ‍always ‍client-focused ‍and ‍draws ‍from ‍the ‍experience, ‍goals ‍and ‍realities ‍of ‍the ‍client. ‍In contrast to counseling, ‍coaching ‍creates ‍a ‍professional ‍partnership ‍focusing ‍on ‍the ‍client’s ‍present ‍and ‍desired ‍future.

The coach brings the creative professional a bespoke set of tools, experiences and a trustful space that gives agency at each step of goal development and realization. Coaching improves outcomes, and it saves time and creates time where it is better needed. Coaching ‍is ‍conducted ‍in ‍person, ‍on ‍Zoom ‍or ‍phone ‍in ‍50-minute ‍weekly ‍sessions. ‍Teaching since 1999 I work individually with PhD Students at University of Melbourne, Australia. I am committed to building new knowledge and academic rigor in the arts.

______________________

About: Les Joynes (b. Southern California, 1963) is a multimedia artist based in New York. He began teaching in 1999 at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and since 2013 is Professor of Record for modern and contemporary art and experimental practices at Renmin University, Beijing.

Les received his BA (Hons) Fine Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London; MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London; PhD Fine Art, Faculty of Art, Environment and Technology, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK and Post-Doctorate in Fine Art, School of Communications and Arts, University of São Paulo, Brazil. Les also possesses a MA specialized in Asian Art from Musashino Art University, Tokyo; M.Sc from Boston University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. He was TrAIN Fellow at the University of the Arts London Research Center on Transnational Art, Identity and Nation.and from 2009-2020 he was scholar of contemporary visual cultures, art history, philosophy and education design at Columbia University. He currently is examining the future of arts PhDs and arts education in the Department of International and Transcultural Arts at Teachers College, Columbia University. 

He has lectured on artistic research at Columbia, Cambridge University, University of the Arts London, University of California Santa Barbara; Mongolian National University of Education, Ulaanbaatar; and Kookmin University, Seoul.

Les has exhibited at museums in the Americas Europe and Asia including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, Norimatsu Museum, Japan, Inside Out Museum, Beijing, and in London at the Barbican, Milch Gallery, and Nylon. His work has featured at the Bangkok experimental Film Festival, Asahi 2000 (Tokyo) Sculpture Magazine, Art Monthly, London, Commons & Sense, Tokyo and NHK Television Japan. Also active in curating he has curated exhibitions in Tokyo and was a member of the Curatorial Team that produced the first Taipei Biennial “Sites of Desire” exhibition in 1998.

Awards and grants include the 2021 Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award; ZERO1: Art and Technology Grant; Fulbright Mission China Award; CEC ArtsLink Foundation Grant for Mongolia and Russia; Taiwan Ministry of Education Huayu Scholarship; Renmin University of China Merit Award; the Wheatley Foundation Fellowship for Birmingham City University; US Department of State/ACMS Field Research Fellowship; Fulbright US Public Diplomacy Award for Mongolia; Queenstown Council Citation Award, Singapore; Edwin Austin Abbey Fellowship at the National Design Museum, New York; Bauhaus Foundation Fellow, the Nordic Artists Center Fellowship, Norway; Musashino Art University Selection Award; Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture Scholarship; Academic Honours, Central Saint Martins College of Art, London; Erasmus Scholarship, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-arts, Paris and the King Sturge Award for Sculpture, London.

Recent publications include “Artist-Centric Practices” in New Institutional Models: China’s Cultural Landscape by Mid-Century (2018), Long Museum, Shanghai, DrawnOver: Contemporary Drawing (2018), Vojvodina, Serbia: Museum of Contemporary Art [catalogue]; Going Beyond: Art as Adventure (2018): Cambridge Scholars UK; Anywhere v.1.(2015), Parsons School of Art; New York; Drawing: Inside Out Art Museum, New York: LeRoy Neiman Foundation [catalogue]; Art and Research at the Outermost Limits of Site Specificity, Newcastle, Australia and Octopus (2012) Journal for Visual Culture. Irvine: University of California, Irvine. Also trained in art criticism he has reviewed for Art in America, Springer, Flash Art; and the Journal for Artistic Research (JAR) in Bern. (image, Les presenting Keynote on Intercultural collaboration at Peking University, 2018)