Second Lives and False Springs: Newness, and New Paintings
Two new oil paintings, one new NFT collection on Known Origin
Hello friends, we find ourselves on the eve of the Spring Equinox: ripe for renewal, rebirth, and the like. The Joshua Trees are blooming and the Mulberry trees in front of my house, dry all winter, are now speckled with moments of green. Newness is upon us — and how beautiful it is!
As such, two new works from my studio:
DESERT OASIS and FALSE SPRING
Fall was a bit of a rough patch but the cocoon of winter held a lot of richness for me, especially when it came to painting. The past few months have been spent developing relationships with new color palettes, exploring new types of mark making, and falling in love with painting all over again. DESERT OASIS depicts the energy of this richness, a lush surreal landscape to the parallel the energetic one I was able to find, alone, at home, despite being in the eye of winter.
Somewhat in contrast, I’ve also been working with the idea of FALSE SPRING — hopes that are dashed, endings that aren’t endings, the looking forward to of newness instead of being in this moment’s reality, the eagerness to get out of an infertile state and into a fertile one.
How we judge endings, how we prefer beginnings.
In other words, the winter in Joshua Tree has been a total tease. One weekend it was 75 degrees, a hot snap, just enough for small grasses and tiny flowers to peek through the sand. The next weekend it was snowing, enough to make a tiny snowball. I’m not one for cold: I’ve spent too much time in the darkness. So, perhaps my eagerness for the next season is understandable after all. But in my quickness to jump from winter to spring, I paused and caught myself: why am I so eager to leave what’s here? What is so uncomfortable about this moment, that I’d rather spend my time in anticipation of the next one instead of diving into the richness, dark or light, warm or cold, of this one? Where else my life am I experiencing FALSE SPRING? What, perhaps, does winter still have to teach me?
Both, as well as a few other paintings, are available directly on my website. I appreciate your support and would be so grateful if you could share my work!
SECOND LIFE, my first collection on Known Origin
On the topic of renewal, rebirth, and the like, I am excited to announce my first NFT collection on Known Origin: SECOND LIFE.
For those of you not involved in the NFT space, Known Origin is a curated platform for rare digital art. You can think of it like an online gallery. Unlike Opensea or Foundation, Known Origin is application-only, and is considered one of the more prestigious places to sell your work. I am thrilled to have been invited to ‘show’ my work in their platform.
SECOND LIFE is my first series of merged digital and physical paintings. The paintings begin as traditional oils: a physical oil painting on canvas that serves as the first layer of the work. The painting is then photographed and transferred to my iPad, where I paint digital layers on top, manipulating colors, pushing pixels, occasionally using digital collage and adding new marks to change the composition. These works are truly digital: the final image lives on a screen, the physical is only the starting point.
The title of the collection is a dual reference: SECOND LIFE, referring to my life as an artist after a ten year business career, SECOND LIFE, referring to the new identity the original physical paintings take when combined with digital.
When looking closely you might be able to see moments of bare canvas, paint drips or distinguish the difference between a digital and physical brushstroke. This new collection has been extremely energizing for me; I’ve been experimenting with digital painting for over a year now, and only now feel I’ve found what is true to my style of work. Practically speaking, SECOND LIFE has unlocked painting time for me. I can now paint on planes, in restaurants, or for a few minutes before I go to bed. It has also allowed me to experiment with colors, palettes, and has certainly begun to influence my physical painting style.
Unfinished versions of FALSE SPRING and DESERT OASIS served as the physical under paintings for the three existing pieces of SECOND LIFE, and the five pieces create a lovely conversation when observed together. New work on the collection will be released every so often. For NFT collectors who’d like a physical piece, I offer to send the high-res painting file so they can print the work out to whatever size they like. To keep closer tabs on my NFT releases, follow me on Twitter.
More on my NFT journey…
I was one of the first abstract and first ‘traditional’ artists to enter the NFT space and my journey started over a year ago. Since, I have sold over ~140 NFTs of my original artwork, onboarded over 200 creatives into the space and enjoyed exploring the intersection of art, technology, and culture. It has been truly a wild ride.
When I first began, I was simply selling images of my original paintings — you can think of these like “digital prints.” Similar to how artists sell the original canvas to one collector, but retain the rights to then sell prints of the same work, artists can also sell NFTs, or digital prints, to a different set of collectors. As my career has progressed in the space, this approach has felt less and less interesting to me, and I have been exploring how to release work that is more true to the “medium” of NFTs.
That exploration first led me to Desert Minis, my most popular NFT collection, which utilizes the ‘metadata’ aspect of NFTs, i.e. the ability to inherently tie text with image, for a combined poetry and painting project inspired by my life in the desert. The funds from this project will be used to self-publish my first book of poetry and essays; it is (as far as I know) the first project of its kind.
SECOND LIFE, or the exploration of digital painting, was a natural evolution and one I have seen many traditional painters explore. Somewhat unique to me, however, is the combination of a physical layer with the digital layer. At the end of they day, my ‘real life’ studio practices is at the core of my creative work so it was of the utmost importance to find a way to authentically integrate physical painting into any digitally-native work I release. I am delighted on how the first attempt at this has manifested and look forward to further exploring this new area of art.
I’d love to hear from you, drop me a note or find me on social! Until next time,
A