From VCA: Weekly Curatorial Picks
Week of December 14th 2021 — by Harry Martin
Hello everyone, and welcome back to this week’s VerticalCrypto Art Curatorial Pick! Today, we will be exploring a curated selection of artists and artworks from the VerticalCrypto Art community, delving further into their recent creations, projects and interests.
This is by no means an exclusive VerticalCrypto Art list. It might be helpful to think of our Curatorial Pick as a taster for all of the exciting artworks currently being created in Crypto Art right now.
With that being said, let’s begin! 🏁
Artist #1 — Vitaly Sarenkov - ‘Rabbit Hole’ 🐰🕳️
Vitaly Sarenkov is a visual artist from St Petersburg, Russia.
As both a physical and digital visual artist, Vitaly creates murals, sculptures, paintings and NFTs. Drawing inspiration from the Avant Garde movement and its artists, such as Kazimir Malevich, Sarenkov allows his bold creativity to manifest in his work. Applying bright primary and secondary palettes, he is drawn to abstract depictions of what may resemble specific ideas of subjects, often being interactive and always playful in nature. Sarenkov has been an artist on Hicetnunc since May, 2021, and is currently taking part in the VerticalCrypto Art Residency.
‘Rabbit Hole’ is Sarenkov’s latest OBJKT artwork, presented at the VerticalCrypto Art Residency Critique #2 last week. Many will interpret Sarenkov’s works in numerous ways — all of which are valid, yet unexpected by the artist himself. In the case of ‘Rabbit Hole’, there are no right or wrong interpretations of this piece; however, Sarenkov communicates the topic of existentialism, and its relative themes of life and death.
Vitaly is a wonderfully hidden gem in Crypto Art. Make sure you check out his OBJKTs and artworks on:
Artist #2 — Iskra Velitchkova — ‘Planos C’
Iskra Velitchkova is a physical and digital visual artist from Bulgaria, currently residing in Madrid, Spain.
A self-taught artist, Velithckova creates generative artworks using photography, plotters (AxiDraw), AI technologies (processing, p5.js, D3.js) and projections. Her work studies the interactions between humans and machines, and how we can understand and define our limits in attempting to make machines more human.
Velitchkova’s work also explores the philosophy of the Balkocc: ‘the relationship between Balkan and Mediterranean patterns and their corresponding aesthetics and mood’. Creating works which reflect on humanity’s relationship with technology, Velithckova combines Balkan and Mediterranean patterns (roots of her heritage) with GANs to highlight aesthetics of Slavic culture, and find creative and technological middle-ground.
Iskra Velithckova has been creating digital artwork since collaborating with information designers at BBVA, minting her first NFT artwork on Hicetnunc in February, 2021.
‘Planos c’ is a generative piece which forms part of Velitchkova’s ‘Spaces’ series on Hicetnunc: an exploration of planes and intersections in space. ‘Planos c’ (meaning ‘blueprint c’ in English) presents strips of bold and otherwise muted colours which overlap and transform the work’s overall appearance, weight and temporality, defining a creative blueprint from generative experimentation.
Iskra Velithckova’s oeuvre is diligent and gorgeously minimal, taking inspiration from rich sources of culture and present-day technologies. Be sure to keep up with her creations!
IskraVelithckova.com, HEN, Twitter.
Keep up the excellent work, Iskra!
Artist #3 — Orbitanaut - ‘Arbour’
Orbitanaut is a digital artist who resides in Oxford, England.
Orbitaunaut creates generative artworks which explore the artist’s fascination with nature, physics, mathematics and the blockchain. Her recent projects on the fxhash platform, for example, draw inspiration from recurring patterns in nature, moons orbiting planets and other organic forms which comprise of recursive elements that constantly change.
Orbitaunaut has been creating generative artworks on the blockchain since November, 2021. She has since minted two collections on both Hicetnunc and the fxhash platforms respectively. Orbitaunaut is also currently a DPhil candidate in physics at Oxford University.
‘Arbour’ is a generative series which observes the similarities and differences which exist between art and nature. Generative art attempts to capture the complexities of the natural world, all whilst attempting to be visually compelling artwork. Nature, on the other hand, is very often mathematical, unmediated and equally captivating.
In Orbitaunaut’s own words, ‘the trees in this work are built recursively as a graph, much like how one could build a fractal. But chaos is mixed in at each step to allow the shapes to vary, and reduce their self-similarity.’ Arbour comprises 211 unique artworks, with each token consisting of three styles of tree, twelve colour schemes (six day, six night), four shapes for leaves, five leaf patterns and other entropy that cannot be enumerated.
Arbour is a simple yet complex generative series which combines the most appealing aspects of generative art, mathematics and nature. Each minted work appears similar in composition to its counterparts, while being different enough to convey unique emotions and moods from the series’ combined dataset.
Orbitunaut is certainly a generative artist that you should keep an eye on. Make sure to follow her socials!
Thank you very much, Orbitaunaut!
Artist #4 — Jesse Draxler - ‘VVRKT’ ☠️
Jesse Draxler is a visual artist, illustrator, curator and art director from rural Wisconsin, USA.
Creating bricolage artworks that handle emotions of fear, uncertainty and paranoia, Draxler utilises digital and analogue mediums such as painting, photography, digital applications, typography and guttural mark-making to produce starkly uncanny artwork.
Draxler has been creating artworks and illustrations for numerous exhibitions and collaborative projects since 2012. He has also recently curated notable Crypto Art exhibitions such as ‘R.I.P HEN’ at Valuart Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland. Jesse Draxler has collaborated with various notable clients including The New York Times, McQ Alexander McQueen, YSL, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Conde Nast, Dita Eyewear, 20th Century Fox, Prince, and many more.
‘VVRKT’ is an artwork by Draxler which started digitally as photos, which were then printed, cut out digitally, scanned, placed in grids, enlarged, printed out again and then collaged onto a wooden panel. Draxler then went to create depth in the piece by cutting out the edges and peeling up the paper around the sides, to then finish off with layers of clear coat and black.
The uniqueness of this piece is its starting nature of being digitally native first, and then reverse engineering it to make it physical, making it very different from works the artist has done in the past. VVRKT is certainly of an acquired taste, contributing to Draxler’s already seriously cool oeuvre. I, for one, love this work.
Be sure to keep up with Jesse Draxler’s latest creations via his channels below:
JesseDraxler.com, SuperRare, Twitter, Instagram.
Thank you for your time, Jesse!
And That’s a Wrap!
Thank you very much for stopping by and seeing our latest display of fresh talent from the VerticalCrypto Art community.
We hope to see you at the same time next week for another VerticalCrypto Art Curatorial Pick. Take care, until then! 🙏 ✨✨
Turn on notifications to keep up with the latest announcements from VerticalCrypto Art:
Website, Twitter, Discord, Instagram.
✨✨✨✨
