Being in the web3 scene is a blessing and a curse. You find yourself noticing patterns of people's preferences, what is being praised. You run the danger of serving the market, ultimately ending in a disservice to yourself. At least in terms of developing your artistic potential. I had a very strong desire to break away from my own expectations and those I perceived from others in order to unearth my own priorities in painting. In a sense I wanted to strip away as much as possible and only leave what is absolutely necessary for the painting to work hoping that this would bring me clarity for the path forward.

Coming from an illustration background I was used to drawing what was asked of me. Over time, that predictability dulled my excitement for drawing. It was my weekly life drawing practice that, over the years, let me discover how much I love exploring a piece on the go. No plan, no recipe, just curiosity. Naturalism started taking a back seat and I found that breaking the rules was in fact a lot of fun. Even though it's a whole new learning curve.

The biggest challenge is making the decision to go a different path. You have to be ready to fail, ready to make bad art. The digital medium helps with this as I am not wasting expensive paper or paints, a fresh start is one "undo" button away. I need this freedom to go all out. The second biggest challenge is communicating this to your viewers and collectors.

I hope it does but we will only know for sure in several years time. All of my pieces are painterly explorations, and as time has gone by, I have increasingly dared to take on the ugly, the incorrect and the unrefined in figurative depictions. The stiff concept of what society deems "beautiful" has always annoyed me. Similarly so, the common confusion of "beautiful" equating "good". Visual beauty tells me nothing of a person, it's the expression, the body language, the lines of a lived face that tell a story. Sometimes its purely an energy that inspires me.

I can't imagine anything more unexciting than spelling it all out for a viewer. Degenerating art to easily consumable content is one of the saddest developments of recent times so when I leave gaps either in details or description, it's an invitation to complete the piece in the viewers mind. I imagine this a more personal experience for them and for me.

I touched on this in a previous question. In order to be free you have to remove all obstacles that may confine you to your comfort zone. Digital is great because it keeps all possibilities open all the way through. It remains malleable and deleting won't cost me anything precious other than time. I hope I can achieve this mental freedom in any mediums but digital is the ideal starting point for this journey.

In a series I try to keep the same approach all the way through. The only thing that changed was my intention of how many pieces I wanted to make. It was three at first and turned into 13. 10 of which ! selected for the series. They just kept pouring out. I loved it.

I don't think there is one in particular. I can tell you that they all equally represent my perspective on life. I hope that is obvious though.

More than reflecting a year, I think it's a consequence of everything that came before and marks a point in my life that requires me to boil my work down to it's essence. The trajectory was always there, but never have I dared do a series like this. It's a breaking of my own walls and it sure is profound for myself. No matter what comes next.

Gerhard Richter once said his art is much smarter than him, and he constantly needs to create the space to allow his art to develop away from his own ideas. I very much relate to that in this point in time. I'm still learning what it means to be an artist. I still have so many questions about why I do what I do. And having put out this series was necessary to prove to myself that I am not scared of changing, of exploring where others may not follow. Curiosity is the mother of creativity and she is the only one I serve. There's so much to explore from here!