ART MARKET May 2024: Highlights & Staff Picks
As May draws to a close, Fakewhale Gallery’s ongoing, on-chain ART MARKET exhibition on objkt.com continues. As we close out May 2024, we’re excited to share a detailed look at this month’s stats!
Following this first highlight, we’re excited to showcase our staff’s top picks for May, each selection highlighting exceptional works that stood out for their creativity and impact
Handpicked Favorites
1. A Sudden, Muffled “Pop” Followed by the Collapse of Space and Time by draincain
With multi-layered compositions encompassing everything glitch art has to offer, draincain is a glitch artist whose art unites vibrant colors, discursive patterns, intricate textures, and a passion for the unconventional.
Using tools like Audacity, GLIC codec, Rebelle, Processing, and Blender, he dives deep into the unpredictable world of digital art. His pieces are bold mixes of color, texture, and disrupted patterns that pull the rug out from under traditional aesthetics.
His artwork “A Sudden, Muffled ‘Pop’ Followed by the Collapse of Space and Time” captures the instant calmness breaks down — an ordinary scene spiraling into chaos, with a burst of glitch effects throwing everything off balance. It’s a visual punch that makes you rethink how just fragile our world can be and how it constantly shifts under our feet.
2. A Memory of a Town, Fading Away by Backwards Geometry
Michael Wilseque, aka Backwards Geometry is a versatile visual artist from Brazil whose work delves into themes of memory, impermanence, and transformation through his multi-media approach.
“A Memory of a Town, Fading Away,” utilizes digital mixed media to form a landscape that feels both nostalgic and transient. It stands out with its subdued yet deliberate use of color and form, suggesting the slow disappearance of familiar scenes — the soft, almost ghostly, representation of buildings and landscapes playing with the idea of memory and its decay over time. A solitary heart in the center, perhaps the soul of the town, both a focal point and a symbol of lingering connections amid this dissolution.
3. It Will Follow You by Ceren Su Çelik
Ceren Su Çelik, a dynamic artist from Istanbul, creates works of art that explore the intricate dance between humanity and technology. The video piece, “It Will Follow You,” is a vivid exploration of this theme, using a mix of CGI and other media to create a visually stunning narrative that unfolds over 21 seconds, accompanied by an engaging soundscape.
In “It Will Follow You,” Çelik constructs a world where the boundaries between the organic and the mechanical become intertwined within a setting where cybernetic creatures juxtaposed against natural elements and futuristic technology, create a surreal, dream-like atmosphere. This piece ultimately highlights the ongoing evolution of our relationship with technology, suggesting it’s something that will inevitably stick with us.
4. Aggressor by Ilya Barabin
Ilya Barabin, an artist skilled in both analog and digital techniques, presents a striking depiction of urban energy in “Aggressor”, a work part of the “Street Photography” series.
“Aggressor” with its raw and energetic expression recalls the chaos and vibrancy of city life. Crafted on a 30×40 cm paper using acrylic and oil pastel, it exemplifies Barabin’s adept use of vibrant colors and bold textures to convey motion and emotion — the red figure dominating the composition, its aggressive posture and exaggerated features capturing the intensity of urban confrontations.
5. party belle 47 by Olivera Đurđević
Olivera Đurđević, an experimental artist known for her evocative mixed media compositions, blends nostalgic sentiment with abstract expression.
“party belle 47” is a powerful reflection on the fleeting nature of relationships and the desire to prolong cherished moments, enhanced shadowy figures and fragmented forms converge, added to the layered elements and subtle color shifts suggesting memories breaking through the surface of consciousness.
The title, alongside its description “Forgive me for hiding your toys. I longed for just a moment more with you,” adds an even deeper personal dimension to the piece, suggesting a longing for return to or preservation of past moments that are as fleeting as they are beautiful.
6. Dialogue by Morpho
Morpho is a 3D artist with a deep interest in the intersection of technology and human emotion.
“Dialogue” encapsulates his exploration into the communication and connection between digital beings as two figures composed of abstract, wireframe-like structures, engage in a conversation using binary code.
It is a powerful reflection on the modern ways we connect and communicate. The figures, stripped of any traditional human features yet unmistakably expressive, sit opposite each other, embodying a deep exchange that transcends words. Their conversation, indicated by streams of binary code, suggests a profound yet invisible bond, highlighting Morpho’s fascination with how digital and abstract forms can convey complex human emotions.
“We learn from conversations, if we want to.”
7. pathless destination by Gregorio Zanardi
Gregorio Zanardi, a multifaceted artist from La Pampa, Argentina, combines his lifelong passion for drawing and painting with digital illustration and photography, his creative expressions delving into the dynamic interplay of life’s transformations, captured through the lenses of nostalgia, gaze, old age, loneliness, and joy.
“pathless destination” profoundly reflects these themes. The painting showcases an elderly figure, imbued with a sense of nostalgia and introspection, sitting against a simplistic yet emotionally charged backdrop — a composition resonating with Zanardi’s belief that life is in constant movement and transformation, with art serving as a vivid testament to this ongoing change.
8. OCD by YEKTA
YEKTA, a surrealist painter and digital artist, delves deep into the psychological torment of obsessive-compulsive disorder in “OCD” — a piece embodying the inner turmoil and the cyclical struggle between intrusive thoughts and the compulsions that follow. It is a surreal exploration into the depths of human emotion and psychological resilience, offering a raw and poignant depiction of the invisible battles many face silently.
The subject, seated amidst a flooded room, is surrounded by objects that suggest a life both submerged and suspended by the disorder. The water in a way symbolizes the overwhelming and uncontrollable nature of OCD, while the scattered and floating objects—a mask, a chair, books, and even the architectural disarray—reflect the fragmented and chaotic mind affected by this condition.
9. The Bather by Introvoid
Through the use of digital painting and other innovative technologies, Introvoid explores the human condition in the digital age. His work, inspired by post-internet art and expressive painters, mirrors the ever-present influence of digital imagery on our lives, exploring the intriguing interplay between reality and digital illusion, enriching the discourse around digital art’s impact on society.
“The Bather” presents an exploration of the interplay between digital influence and human perception, challenging us to consider the pervasive impact of digital technology on our real-life experiences.
Natural elements merge with digital artifacts and abstract patterns, creating a surreal environment, bursting with movement, where every element—from pixelated distortions to fluid, organic forms—contributes to a narrative about the confusion but also fascination of living in a digitally saturated society.
10. TRANS PORTAL IRRIGATION ENGINEER by Mumbleboy
In “TRANS PORTAL IRRIGATION ENGINEER” Mumbleboy creates an artwork that defies traditional categories by blending completely unrelated images into an intriguing visual experience, exemplifying his distinctive style of merging unconventional elements.
The artwork brings together a snapshot of an outdoor scene—featuring elements like water and a fire hydrant—with an image of a person in a costume, marked by abstract fragments. At first glance, these elements blend with the background, resembling plants or bushes, which tricks the eye into seeing a fragmented, somewhat chaotic landscape. Looking closer, the piece transforms, allowing us to see beyond initial impressions to a more complex interaction of forms. What truly stands out is its bold experimentation and the playful yet thoughtful way it combines the real with the surreal.
Mumbleboy embraces the idea that art doesn’t need to be clean or make obvious sense. He finds beauty in the messy process of mixing different visual elements — an invitation to appreciate the unexpected and find meaning in the mixture of the everyday and the imaginative.
As we wrap up May’s staff picks, we invite you to continue following the ART MARKET both via X and our official ART MARKET channel on Farcaster.
fakewhale
Founded in 2021, Fakewhale advocates the digital art market's evolution. Viewing NFT technology as a container for art, and leveraging the expansive scope of digital culture, Fakewhale strives to shape a new ecosystem in which art and technology become the starting point, rather than the final destination.
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