MYSTIC — It's a pretty rare sight to walk into a restaurant and find Sylvester Stallone, Salvador Dali and Julia Roberts all together at one counter, but it's exactly what happened one morning last month on a visit to Go Fish, Jon Kodama's legendary sushi restaurant that moved from its 25-year home in the Olde Mistick Village to a stunning renovated space on Route One last year. The celebrities may not have been there in person, but it was their likenesses — in the form of portraits crafted from sushi — that were lined up on the counter this day, with their creator, longtime Sushi Chef Bryan "Maki Master" Sisk, standing shyly behind them. Sisk, 44, a Pawcatuck native with deep, far-reaching Stonington roots, is a lifelong artist and a self-proclaimed lefty.
"Just like my mother and grandmother," said Sisk with a warm smile. "We're all lefties and we're all self-taught." Sisk's mother, Evie Gentile, is a painter, and his grandmother, the late Evelyn Sayles Bagshaw, was an accomplished artist who specialized in oils.
While Sisk has created works of art with oils, acrylics and pastels, it's sushi, he said, that has become his new medium. He has created likenesses of dozens of celebrities, from Taylor Swift to Bob Marley, Joe Rogan to Dolly Parton and Martha Stewart to Lionel Mesi. He shares his work — and his process — on social media, and even has his own Maki Master You Tube channel ( https://www.
youtube.com/@Maki_Master ) full of short videos with names like "The Time I Turned Joe Rogan Into A Sushi Roll," "Watch How I Turned Shaquille O'Neal Into A Sushi Roll," "Watch How I transform Beyoncé into Beautiful Sushi Art," "Raw and Uncut: The Artist Behind the Sushi," and with thousands of subscribers. Maki Master is Sisk's new calling and passion.
"One of my dreams is to have an art show with the portraits on canvas one day," he said. "Art is therapy for me," said Sisk, a 1997 Stonington High School graduate who began working for Kodama when he was 19 years old. "It's a cure-all and brings out the best in me.
" It was Jon's brother, Gerald Kodama, a sushi master, who introduced him to the art of sushi-making at Go Fish, Sisk said. The Kodamas and his Go Fish colleagues "have been kind of my second family," said Sisk. "Gerry taught me everything I know," said Sisk, who has been working at Go Fish for the last 26 years.
"Time flies," said the father of three — Anna, Gillian and Alex — whose wife of 19 years, Jaclyn Lizotte-Sisk, is one of his biggest champions. "Bryan has always been the artist that creates without the thought of recognition," said Lizotte-Sisk in an email. He puts so much of himself into his art, she said, and often ends up giving pieces away to family members and friends.
"Maki Master is no different," she said. "Over the last year, I have watched this unique medium come to life and I could say I was surprised, but I wasn’t, not really. Bryan has a talent that many could only dream of, and I am so very proud of his accomplishments.
" "My hope for Bryan is that this creative journey will continue to reach and inspire others who may think that their 'something' isn’t possible," Lizotte-Sisk said. "My wife is Superwoman," said a smiling Sisk, "and the kids are our world." While it may be a challenge to choose just one portrait to highlight from a gallery that also includes Dave Portnoy, Jimmy Fallon, Lil Wayne and Jennifer Aniston, Sisk can narrow down his to picks.
"If I had to pick a favorite portrait it would probably be Salvador Dali with his pet ocelot Babu," Sisk said. "I had so much fun with that one. And the ingredients are really cool.
" Sisk used nori, sushi rice, salmon, hamachi, tako — or octopus — for the main parts of the face, and eel and ube sauce for details, like eyes, eyebrows and lip liner. "My sauces are my paints," said Sisk who also uses purple yam for paint and sometimes tuna for the face. "I'm a tuna guy," Sisk said with a small laugh as he sliced into a slab of fresh fish.
Actually, Sisk said as he paused and looked up from his work, his art has saved him. Shortly before Go Fish closed down at Olde Mistick Village — in order to prepare for the new spot — Sisk lost his older brother, the late Andrew T. Sisk, to suicide.
He found himself without work — his outlet and his coping mechanism — and without his brother. The loss was deep and profound, he said. "It was brutal," said Sisk, who, in his "Raw and Uncut" video, posts resources for suicide prevention, and states that his "heart goes out to anyone and everyone" dealing with suicide and its aftermath.
"After I lost my brother, my wife and I were grieving," Sisk said, "So, we took a vacation to Florida to get away." Nearby, on Manasota Key, Sisk's cousin, Brendan Gilligan, rented a place with his wife, Marsha, so the couples could spend some healing time together. "Bryan and I are like brothers," said Gilligan by telephone one afternoon last week.
"We're a very close family ...
deeply connected." As members of Pawcatuck's Bagshaw-Gilligan-Holt-Sisk clan, Gilligan said, he and Sisk "share the best childhood memories growing up on Sunrise Drive." In Florida, he said, "We were together from morning to night.
" "We spent time cooking lots of good food and just being together," Gilligan said. When Sisk showed his cousin what he'd been doing with sushi and art, Gilligan was deeply moved. So, much so, that he had a sort of vocational epiphany.
"I literally woke up in the middle of the night," said Gilligan with enthusiasm. "I pretty much knew then that we'd have to find a way." For Gilligan, finding a way, meant sharing Sisk's talents and creativity with a wider audience — letting the world know about his cousin, the Maki Master and his amazing talent.
Plans for making the Maki Master You Tube channel a bona fide business and for developing a social media presence began to coalesce. Today, the two cousins are now fifty-fifty partners — with Sisk as the star and Gilligan serving as creative director. "We've been fine tuning and honing things for the last eighteen months," said Gilligan who recently moved to Texas with his wife and their daughter, Aspyn.
"It's an exciting phase." "Bryan is the real talent behind Maki Master," said Gilligan, whose parents, Tom and Jean Gilligan are both Stonington High School graduates. Plans are in the works for a refurbished website, and updated social media links and platforms.
They also plan to opening up the portrait making for custom requests. Not only is Bryan talented, said Gilligan, but he's humble and "full of humanity." "He's an amazing guy and he's the best of all things," Gilligan added.
Back inside Go Fish, Sisk grew contemplative. "Brendan has faith in me and in my art work," he said quietly. "I'll keep doing this because I love it, whether I get a million views or one hundred.
" To see more of Sisk's work, visit https://www.youtube.com/@Maki_Master .
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