Abstract Art Analysis 7: Blockchain and Beyond
Discover great art as NFTs, WIPs (works in progress), and as redeemable tapestries.
Content:
Art:
‘Wallpaper Women #1’ by Danielle King
‘Duality 02’ by TOCA ME
‘Klangteppich #24’ by Andreas Rau
Extras: Three artist accounts that are stealing my attention.
You’ll find links to the piece at the end of each analysis. Enjoy!
‘Wallpaper Women #1’ by Danielle King
First impression:
The cropped texture, the color palette, the soft-white of the faces and their complex expressions hooked me immediately and caused me to linger. This is one of those pieces that feels simple upon first look but gives so much more. It looks like a basic textural piece, which is somewhat intended with “wallpaper” in the name. Yet, upon further inspection, there is a bit more happening. Questions to be answered.
The subtlety in the eyes is impressive. You see a mixture of expression: wonder, worry, annoyed, studied, etc. These are only interpretations, but none of them are expressing one obvious emotion. There’s complexity, contemplation.
Another thing I noticed in these marked faces is that none are looking away (toward the edges) from the canvas. They are either looking straight forward or toward the inside of the canvas. When you’re out in public and a couple people are looking up at something, it automatically makes you look up to see what’s going on. This piece has a similar effect.
Adding to the complexity of what you first expect to be just a consistent wallpaper texture, we have a single figure looking away with closed eyes. What is this about? What happened to her? What is she thinking?
Again, adding to the complexity of this scene, there is a single figure looking completely away with the back of her head facing the viewer (I’m assuming that’s what this is).
There’s an abstracted floral texture here that shows itself in a fairly evenly dispersed way. Floral design is very common in wallpaper, so the texture here adds to that aesthetic.
This small detail is something I looked at several times. It doesn’t play a major role but there is something satisfying in the way the shape is split by three different colors and how they act as hair on the women, yet you wonder whether it is even meant to be hair or if the shapes just happened to line up that way.
[unmarked] The even distribution of colors is very satisfying and caters to the idea of wallpaper, which tends to be consistent in texture.
Collect or bid on the piece here.
Follow the artist here.
‘Duality 02’ by TOCA ME
First impression:
The rich, but softened, pinks and purples over a shade of beige caught my attention first. I almost always love the look of muted colors and gritty textures. These elements give me a feeling of seriousness, maturity, maybe even a hint of melancholy. Bright colors associated with happiness and lightness become more interesting when treated in this way.
After the initial viewing of this piece, these specs are the next thing I noticed. There is a counterpoint here against the perfectly smooth edges of the circles. As shown in the markings, these are distributed across most of the canvas with the largest one near the center as the first one that catches your eye.
I find this a very interesting extension of the texture in 1. There seems to be deliberate use of the pink version in that it’s only shown in the purple circle. Another fascinating detail is that there doesn’t seem to be mutual behavior with the purple. You don’t see purple specs anywhere, but there is a large black area in the purple circle that ties into the black specs shown in the pink circle and elsewhere. There is a bit of yin and yang happening in that regard.
There are a few places where you see this teal color revealed in the wearing of the background. This is subtle, but very much present and quite nice as a complimentary color element.
The straight lines add counter texture against the circles. Very simple and effective. I love that they are consistent with the general worn texture of the piece in the way they are slightly broken. I also appreciate that they are not evenly spaced from each other.
Collect or bid on the piece here.
Follow the artist here.
‘Klangteppich #24’ by Andreas Rau
This is my favorite output from this long-form generative collection and it doesn’t warrant the typical analysis I do in this newsletter. This collection is an impressive multi-media work. The piece you see here is a still image taken from a gradually evolving animated visual that is also set to an evolving soundscape, which is closely tied to the visual output on the back end. Not only do you get that, but there is the option to redeem a physical woven tapestry of the piece.
Visual: The visual art is directly inspired by weave patterns in fabric. I personally feel like it has a hint of pop art influence. Whether or not this was intentional, the texture is very similar to what you see in that style.
The animation can be seen by clicking ‘open’ below the image.
If the animation and sound don’t play upon opening, just click the image or press the space bar.
Audio: The sound is very calming and meditative. This is achieved partially by the use of dreamy sustained major ninth arpeggios and some light drum sounds.
Tapestry: These gorgeous tapestries are woven directly from the algorithm that created your digital piece on a TC-2 loom digital weaving machine.
Collect or bid on the piece here.
Follow the artist here.
Extras:
Here are a few artists who’s X/Twitter posts always stop me in my tracks.
Deborah Gardner - I don’t know much about Deborah except that she posts tons of incredible art in the style of the one below. I’m endlessly fascinated by her textures, composition, and use of color. As far as I know, she doesn’t have any work on the blockchain. It seems to be all physical, but I’m not entirely sure. The only thing I’m sure about is that you’ll enjoy her clean timeline that consists almost purely of art.
jeres - This is an artist I’ve been following for a while and have always been captivated by his work. I just noticed he recently got the major privilege of being curated by Art Blocks. An incredible achievement and I’m super excited for him. Here’s an example of one of his pieces:
Juan Pedro Vallejo - This is an artist who I recently discovered. I believe his account was randomly added to my feed based on other things I interacted with. He recently posted the piece shown below as a companion piece with another in the same post. I spent a lot of time looking at both of them. I love the way the lines break out of the established pattern, the fractalized circles, and mix of other textures. There is a lot of control here mixed with chaotic elements.
That’s all for this week! I hope you discovered some new favorite artists and learned new ways to look at a piece of abstract art.
Feel free to message me here or on X with any questions, collaboration ideas, or anything else.
Have an awesome week!
-LW