The Artist Experience— Ep. 1
Featuring: PlatypussDivva
Welcome to The Artist Spotlight with The Absence Experience! Providing artists with an opportunity to not only talk a bit about themselves and their inspirations, but also to share their work for all of us to appreciate and marvel at! Our very first Spotlight is featuring PlatypussDivva! They have a very unique style in which they utilize 3D art and photography to create some truly unique, amazing, and terrifying creations! Please enjoy, and if you have any questions make sure to reach out on Twitter and follow @PlatypussDivva to see more art! We’ll change up the formatting of these spotlights frequently, maybe even weekly, but for this week please enjoy this insightful Q/A from PlatypussDivva!
Tell us a bit about yourself! Where are you from? Where do you live now? Family? Pets?
I am originally from Costa Rica, I currently reside on the west coast of the US with my family, cats, and fish.
What types of art do you do?
I currently focus on digital stills and video, usually with an underlying horror/creepy theme.
Did you study art in school or is it something that you do as a hobby/passion?
I didn’t study art in school. It all started as a technical investigation for a potential project that became a creative outlet.
What is your professional background?
I’ve worked different roles in software development for most of my professional career from development to leadership, a lot of my work has been around creative uses of web and gaming technology.
What/Who are your biggest influences/inspirations? Do other personal interests influence your art?
Growing up, I was strongly influenced by Punk and Metal culture and art (Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Type-O-Negative, Joy Division, Iggy Pop, etc.), horror & mind !@#$! films (Cronenberg, Carpenter, Burton, Aronofsky, Jodorowsky, etc.), games like Call of Cthulhu and Magic The Gathering, and horror, fantasy, and sci-fi books. (Simmons, Asimov, Stephenson, Jordan, etc.). Also, I have a good friend (Mr. Perro) who is a never-ending source of mind-bending WTF material, technical knowledge, and honest feedback that I greatly appreciate. Other personal interests that heavily influence my art are emerging technologies, I like learning new tech and bringing that back into what I create.
What steps have you taken to develop your art career so far? Is this your dream job? What is your dream project?
I never planned on becoming an artist, technology has driven my career and has also driven me to create art, and it will always play a big part in anything I do. This past year though I have actively stepped out of my comfort zone and started joining communities, interacting with artists and collectors, and putting what I create out there for others to see. There is still so much to learn about art as a career, and improving my overall art process that I would say these are just baby steps.
What is your personal favorite piece that you have created? Why?
This is a hard one to answer, there is a lot of me in every piece I create and I love them all for different reasons but If I have to pick a current favorite I would say it’s Apparition:
https://twitter.com/PlatypussDivva/status/1491104091132825600?s=20&t=ioQfE50m0o0_kPIB_gHurw
The old-school horror vibes and the dissonance of a daytime haunting just give it something that gets my arm hairs to stand.
Do you ever collaborate with other artists? If so, how and who?
I do and I love collaboration. I had the honor of collaborating on some videos with Jonathan Mann (@songadaymann) an amazing musician who has been creating a song a day for 13 years. I’m also working on a collaboration (and onboarding into web3) with one of my favorite artists from Costa Rica Tomo77 (https://www.tomo77.com/)
How do you cultivate a desire to collect your work?
I have to be honest, this is not something I actively work on and is a growth area for me. I create what I need to create and put it out there and share it with the communities I have found, I observe what other artists do and try to learn from the ever-changing mood of the NFT space.
How did you get started in web3? What about Solana specifically? Have you been involved with any projects?
I had done some initial explorations back in 2018 around Crypto Kitties and it had that feeling of the fresh new thing that was coming. With the pandemic and the accelerated boom of web3, NFTs, and crypto I ended up joining the JUMP community https://www.joinjump.community/ where I met a lot of like-minded individuals that are pushing web3 into the mainstream, around the same time I was starting to collect NFTs in the ETH network and thanks to Kai @kaigani I met Jonathan Mann who took interest in the experiments I was doing with VQGAN+Clip and we ended collaborating. Soon the cost of participating in ETH projects got ridiculous and the risk of burning way more than I could in a failed transaction turned me to look for alternatives. Low and predictable transaction fees, speed of transactions, less impact on the environment, good support for NFTs, good wallets were all considerations. The good friend I mentioned above turned me onto Solana and that was a life-changing experience. I’m close to becoming a Solana maximalist and most of the time I prefer working on the Solana network and trying to onboard people onto it. As of now, I have not been directly involved in any Solana projects.
Who is your favorite Solana based artist? Why?
I love what the team behind The Observer https://twitter.com/theObserverNFT has done, they are my current favorite. The visual style and message the art conveys resonates deeply with me.
Do you invest in NFTs or do you prefer to just do the art? If you do collect, what are you bullish on right now?
I enjoy both sides of NFTs, creating and investing. I’m bullish on 1/1 art and NFT fractionalization. I love what The URS https://twitter.com/The_URS_ is doing for the 1/1 artist space, all their official artist are great and they provide a great community. I’m bullish on the science-driven project https://twitter.com/genenft, I also like discovering and supporting up-and-coming artists that are breaking into the space.
Have there ever been any major challenges that forced you to almost give up on art?
Art is like therapy for me, a creative outlet where I can let my brain explore, there are always situations and moments in life that take up more of your attention and slow down the artistic process, but I don’t think I can give up on it, I always find my way back to creating at some point.
Any advice for aspiring artists?
Create what you love creating, make mistakes often and learn from them, put your art out there, and at some point it will reach the right people. Reach out and join communities, it’s amazing how open and welcoming the Solana art space is.
Anything else you would like to add?
I want to give a shout-out to people that have been a very positive influence during this past year. Mr Perro, @famous_letters, @virkkk_, @3djustqc, @BU___UB, and my loving family.
— Platypuss
Thank you all for taking the time to learn a bit about our talented new friend! All artwork featured in this article is a piece completed by PlatypussDivva and we are VERY thankful for their cooperation and willingness to participate! Platypuss will be Redeeming a Canvas in the future, so keep an eye out for whatever amazing creation comes next!
Thank you again, and we hope you all are looking forward to our next spotlight!
TAE
