THE SOCIAL CONNECTION Exhibition August 2021
REY
Linda Dounia Rebeiz
Roman Casus
Octavio Irving
Sky Goodman
Zero Alpha
Ego Rangel
GEM
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE Exhibition July 2021
Gustavo Torres
Alejandro Cartagena
Stephanie Fuller
Pierre Gervois
Empress Trash
Dehiscence
Playnft
Iofeye
Paper Buddha
Thais Silva
Tù.úk’z
Ego Rangel is a multidisciplinary artist from the city of Tijuana (Mexico). He is currently studying two degrees at different universities: Plastic Arts and Film and Audiovisual Production.
His work ranges from the personal to the social, establishing a relationship between the senses of absence and invisibility within the family and political environment.
Gilbert Gemayel (GEM/Gili) is digital collage artist and illustrator of 3 years, entering the domain of digital artwork in 2018 after attending university with an emphasis on Architecture. He started his art practice interpreting architecture through collage, representing the context within.
Starting his work in doodles, mandala, pop art, 3d vector art, and graffiti, GEM creates quickly and daily, while also containing a meaning or a message: perhaps experimental. The process timeline varies from hours to days in an endless, experimental loop. GEM’s Instagram acts as a visual diary, the work meaningful representing milestone moments like falling in love, or heartbreak, or listening to moving music.
Roman Casus is an award-winning artist based in Russia whose paintings have been exhibited nationally. In 2018–19, he studied at the School of Contemporary Art “Free Workshops” in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. In 2018 he received an American Art Award in the category “Political commentary”. He completed artist residence Open Studios in Moscow through the Winzavod Art Center (2020). Participated in the VII Moscow Youth Biennale (parallel program).
Roman was a web designer for many years prior to 2017, the year he started painting. In his works he reconsiders the experience of creating commercial digital images from separate fragments. Unlike the traditional painters, he doesn’t use a studio setup. All images are taken from the digital environment: social media, broadcast services, newsfeed. These frozen images contain defects, somеtimes their resolution is low, so he finds what is hidden there while creating the painting. Characters and objects bear the imprint of reality. But the truncation of shapes, color distortion, and deformation make it almost impossible to interpret what is happening. His subject matter lies behind conflict, fear, politics, nudity, and anonymity.
Arthur Machado aka Tù.úk’z is a digital artist natural from the Rainforest, Amazon, Brazil. Tù.úk’z is digital apparition that was born in the sea of information back in 2014. Subversion, intervation and digital alchemy are keywords for it’s work. Since 2014 Tù.úk’z work had been exhibited in more than 20 countries around the globe. Always changing styles, Tù.úk’z dialogues with glitch and post internet aesthetics.
“All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you”
Thais Silva is a Brazilian visual artist, collagist & designer.
Paper Buddha is a psychedelic collage artist with a long history in LSD culture. He digitally combines traditional Buddhist art with early science fiction illustrations, giving the illusion of an analog process.
IOFEYE is a self taught interdisciplinary artist, born in Croatia and based in Denmark. She completed Ba and Ma in international relations at the University of Wales, focusing on exploring metaphysical possibilities for a more open conception of what it means to be human. This inquiry led to deeper self inquiry and realization that she wanted to work in the field of free and creative self expression and self exploration. IOFEYE has been working full time as an artist and with social/cultural/creative projects for the past 13 years. She has been an NFT artist since 2020.
The work of IOFEYE is characterized by experimentation, expressionistic approach, attitude of exploration and intuitiveness. She is not drawn to one single medium, but rather to possibilities that lie in collisions and connections between different mediums. Behind it is a belief that the totality of human beings has multiplicity of aspects, and so the expression of that Beingness in the world is also facilitated by allowing for different languages and aspects of self to be channeled through different mediums and expressive formats. In her work, IOFEYE is fascinated by the hybrid creations, by what happens when unlikely things collide and by experimenting with the intersections. She creates visual works, animation works, video art, Vjing, installations, sonic sculptures, photo-collages and books – and all these things have an experimental and expressive flavor to them, led by an intuitive sense and engagement with the moment. Seeking both to allow the emergent and to intentionally create and at the same time, she is fascinated by the combination of the unpredictable with the intentional.
There is an underlying connection between the ”worlds” within the body of her art-work that is not necessarily always brought out in the explicit sense, but that runs as an undercurrent between the different works or formats. IOFEYE’s conception of creation is as an endless, interconnected canvas with worlds within worlds revealing their potentialities as one engages in creating. While there is an end to a piece of paper or a sequence of audio or video or a boundary between analog and digital – there is one part a sense (and conviction) that potential for creation itself occurs both between and beyond these boundaries.
In the visual work, IOFEYE explores both abstract themes and figurative motifs, as well as connections between them. Many of the visual works are characterized by bold use of color and contrasts, as well as multiple levels of motifs and details. Especially in the illustrative work, she explores the worlds-within-worlds idea, where different levels of scenes unfold simultaneously within a single frame. This again has its origins in the notion that creation is fractal, endless and that wherever we may zoom in and engage with consciousness, the worlds, possibilities and realities open up to experience and exploration. Much of her work carries a flavor of mythical elements, dream-like landscapes and fantastic creatures. IOFEYE is interested in exploring the relationship between the conscious and unconscious, dreams and waking-state and to open up to an intuitive form of symbolic expression.
IOFEYE has had several exhibitions in galleries, art festivals and cultural spaces in Denmark and abroad, and she has been creating visuals for a large number of music and culture events in Copenhagen. She has also been working on and co-creating a number cultural projects, as well as co-started several artists collectives aimed at expanding and strengthening creative spirit in her local community.
Bilge Kaan(Playnft) is a game developer from Istanbul. He is working as a freelance game developer and making interactive NFTs as a hobby for hicetnunc.
UNTITLED
Drea Jay AKA Empress Trash is a visual artist who currently resides in her adopted home of West Oakland. A survivor of extreme childhood trauma, art was her escape and freedom for as long as she can remember. As a multi-versatile artist, she embraces fully abstraction, surrealism, trash art and glitch, while she utilizes radical expressionism and self-acceptance in a goal to heal her trauma along with encapsulating each moment to hopefully help others along their paths. She believes peeling back the veneer of reality allows for exploration of the subconscious meta connections between the emotional, physical, mental, sexual and spiritual realms.
Art is a process-orientated practice for her steeped in meditation, a deep understanding of how color affects the human psyche, and ultimately aspiring to embrace and articulate the unknown instead of fearing it. A considerable portion of her work is animated mixed-media utilizing acrylic, watercolor, oil, and digital mediums. Her use of varied materials reflects her passion as a life-long learner, on a constant search for new philosophies, scientific discoveries, and visual tools to communicate in an accessible manner esoteric concepts.
Drea believes elitism in art is a toxic concept and detrimental to humanity as a whole. She entered the Crypto Art scene because she truly believes it’s a conduit for radical social change, international community building and the future of art. Since March 2021, she has co-founded the art communities Fam Jam and Smol Movement.
