Designcollector (Arseny Vesnin) is a guest contributor on Superrare Editorial, leading NFT Art Platform on the crypto art scene. Here is my selection of Top 10 artist trading on the platform this week (April 2021)

Flora Borsi - Sneaky

DC: You’re already a successful and well established artist, what made you pursue NFT art as a medium?
FB: NFT is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen! I’m so happy to see artists who made art just for fun and for their followers are selling for thousands of dollars! Somehow with my moving imagery I couldn’t fit into Photography nor Digital Art, so NFT was the perfect solution for me to monetize my Animations

David Åberg, Ultra – Fusion version one

DC: Tell us a little about your work

DA: Back in 2015, I created “Ultra – Fusion”, a seven minutes long animated loop. It was my follow-up project to Zombierina and my second sculpture after I’ve decided to focus more on the aspect of sculpting and sculpture in virtual space, rather than doing character animation. Being able to delve into form, light, texture, and materiality with all its artificial intensity was a very appealing experience for me. Now six years later Ultra – Fusion making Its way onto the blockchain through a non-fungible token, or NFT.

Dimitri Daniloff - Daft Punk Series

DC: What inspired the work in your first NFT drop?

DD: The first NFT drop will be the series I shot with Daft Punk for Lemon Magazine. 6 images in single edition, no other copies have been sold until now and no other copies will be sold. These images will only remain in the blockchain. When thinking about Daft Punk I had this coming to mind: Does the intervention of machines / masks on our bodies enable us to get closer to whom we truly are? So I proposed the magazine to shoot them integrating a 3D cyborg woman into the existing pictures, thus proposing my own vision of an augmented human being. For the little story the cover was a Daft Punk tribute to David Bowie “Heroes” album cover. But I recently discovered on the net that a few years later, in 2014, David Bowie shared the photo on his FaceBook account during the London Music Week Award. And magazines published the image the next day saying that he was wearing Daft Punk’s helmet. But I can confirm it wasn’t him but the Daft Punk.

Symbiosis by Thisset and Nikita Replyanski

DC: Is it important to you to be a part of a creative community of people?

ST: The audience feedback is very important for me as an artist. And not only from like-minded people and other artists but from strangers and admirers. As I dedicated the main part of my life to photography art it is important for me to be a part of the community and find new sources of inspiration, and to be the same for others, and to earn for living. That’s why I follow trends, communicate with followers and clients and run collaborations.

Personal Informational Organism by Aristarkh Chernyshev

DC: Tell as a little about PiO?

AC: PiO – Your personal informational organism, inseparable friend and adviser. It is your personal trainer, doctor or even a guardian angel. A team of dozens of bioengineers, neuroprogrammers, biochemists, pharmacists, immunologists, biochip and cutting-edge software developers worked in laboratories to build an organism capable of providing all your needs for information, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, security, and even needs that you don’t know you have yet. Forget about the constant search for a charger, you no longer need wires! This new, unusual device is a hybrid of a leech and a smartphone; it feeds on the blood of the owner, thereby maintaining its working capability: simultaneously it collects medical data (e.g.,monitoring heart rate and blood pressure, carrying out blood tests) and if necessary, it can synthesize various substances, such as insulin, and introduce them into the blood of the owner. Dare to wear it?

The Blooming Piece by Dmitry Melnukoff

DC: What is the idea behind this work?

DM: This animation is influenced by the events in May, 2020. We live in a great time where people have all the means to live a full and safe life, so we must not let our basic instincts take over. I’m against any violence, both by the police and by the demonstrators. Only love and kindness can make the world better and the people stronger.

The Awakening by Saad Moosajee

DC: What inspired the work in your first NFT drop?

SM: My genesis piece for SuperRare is my first ever NFT, it’s also the first instalment in my new series ‘Verses’. It explores the afterlife, reimagining classical paintings with an emphasis towards South Asian futurism and the surreal.
I am interested in the potential of 3D animation, digital representation, and the Metaverse to create diverse futures that act as modern historical reenactments and rewritings. ‘Verses’ questions the European view of classical painting through highly dimensional, futuristic tableaus focused towards digital humans of color.

Gaderel by Pokras Lampas with Dmitry Melnukoff

DC: Tell us more about the concept behind this great work

PL: {Guild of the Fallen} is the upcoming NFT project dedicated to the artistic view on myths and legends of fallen angels. The first angel is Gaderel and all other angels to be released later this year. Gaderel is cast down from heaven to earth by higher powers, and is frozen in the atmosphere in a dramatic moment of triumph when some Gods win over others. Between heaven and hell, an angel reaches its genesis. The Awakening is the first chapter in the ‘Verses’ collection, a digital mythology born out of moving chiaroscuro paintings. Each piece is realised through bespoke motion capture, animation and 3D lighting techniques. This work is a part of collaboration with Dmitri Melnukoff.

Love Spell by Sasha Katz

DC: Speechless..

SK: Indeed, because it was inspired by the Aphrodite ritual performed on a full moon. The purpose of the ritual is awakening of self love and acceptance and celebrating feminine sensuality and beauty. Note it! 🙂

Great Basin Skate Heaven by Grif

DC: This is a great piece from your Equinox collection. Tell us about it

SG: We follow a skater as they perform tricks and stunts in a skaters paradise, located in the Utah Great Basin. The idyllic sunset scene bears witness to the transfer of energy between this floral figure and the contrasting graffiti-soaked concrete environment beneath. The figure, acting as a catalyst, pollinates the park causing nature to reclaim the concrete.

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Arseny Vesnin (Twitter: @designercollector), founder of Designcollector Network (2003) and curator of the Digital Decade initiatives, exhibitions and online collaborations. Interdisciplinary mediator guiding artists and communicating the future of art. Based in St.Petersburg, Russia.

Flora is a young fine art photographer from Hungary. She uses exquisite photo manipulation to create surreal images that are thematically focused on identity, relationships, emotions and dreams. Her immaculate technique and subtle conceptual ideas create beautiful evocations of universal emotions, from lust and desire to despair and loss. Flora at once captures the complex strength and fragility of the human psyche. She expertly visualises dark fantasies and atmospheric dreams, utilising the uncanny and clever metaphor, while unlocking what it means to think, feel, dream and express in the urban world.

Her work often features the female body and she plays with hiding and revealing the eyes or face to leave only the feminine form, exploring questions of female representation and the relationship between body and self. We speak to her during her first drop on Superrare

Flora Borsi

Self-taught multimedia addict, doing self-portraits for more than a decade

What was your path to doing what you’re doing now?

Everything led to what I’m doing right now, I tried to do UI design and coding when I was younger, but that didn’t make me happy. Since a very young age I've been interested in Photoshop and photo-manipulations, I won my first camera at 15 and since then I’m doing self-portraits. I wanted to create something immortal, which is Art. I’ve had many obstacles, since digital art and photoshop-portraits are still new and weren't accepted in art communities in Hungary. Years later with the help of the Internet I made projects where I gained a lot of international attention and turned my passion into the main source of my income.

When you were growing up, was creativity part of your life, and how did you decide to focus on photo-manipulation?

Since I was a little kid I’ve been creating drawings or something creative with every tool I had. I tried to go to a “normal” high-school with a drawing faculty, but skipped many classes and stayed home doing self-portraits with my camera and Photoshop. For me it was obvious that I want to do this on a professional level, so I went to a University where I got my Bachelor of Arts in Photography.

Did you feel different at the time you realised yourself as an artist?

In Hungary people don’t like to call themselves “Artist” it’s like being very arrogant, so I haven’t had the opportunity to consider myself as being one. I’m just doing what I like and if others think it’s art, then I’m happy about that.

Did you have an “Aha!” moment when you knew that photography was what you wanted to do?

Honestly I couldn’t think about doing anything else, it was like predestined for me.

You created an outstanding series of work “Animeyed” that had a lot of response, reaction and even copycats. Was it a breaking point in your career? How does it influence your way of doing work now?

That was absolutely a big milestone for me! Before that I had some popular projects, but Animeyed was the big break-through for me, I got a lot of invitations to exhibit world-wide, which helped me to be financially free.

Do you collaborate with other artists?

Usually I don’t, whenever I tried it wasn’t successful, haha. In my opinion it’s very hard for two strong-willed artists to agree and collaborate.

As a creative person, do you ever have those moments where you feel like everything you create is just shit?

All the time. Sometimes I think that all I do is just meaningless and couldn’t be as good as other artists’ work. Then a few days later some good news comes in and then I’m fine, like even if I don’t like what I did - others do.

Have you taken any big risks to move forward?

I did! I was invited to be a teacher in the US many times, but I stayed and rather created new pieces. Somehow I’m freaking out of the thought that I’m chained to something, for years, every day.

Are your family and friends supportive of what you do? Who has encouraged you the most?

They are. My Dad did teach the basics of photography and encouraged and supported me when I needed him. I have a lot of haters in my country and before I got popular they made mean comments almost every time I released something. I still remember having almost the worst grade in Photoshop Class at the University and a few months later being invited to do the Splash Screen for Photoshop. That teacher later came to me and while he was congratulating - he said that he always knew I’m good in Photoshop, lol! At my University I did quit for like 3 times because of that mindset, but my family and friends helped me to overcome the haters or emotional issues I was having.

Did you have a mentor? Who was it and how did they inspire you?

Like I mentioned before, it was my Dad who taught many things in Photography and showed other artists’ work when I was at the very beginning of my career. When I was around 12-13, we usually sat in the front of Youtube and he explained later how that studio/camera setup was made. We used a lot of papers and I shed a lot of tears haha (I didn’t understand the math stuff for months).

Is it important to you to be a part of a creative community of people?

Indeed! I love to see others making amazing stuff, it’s so inspiring! It’s also amazing to see that people I know creating artworks which will be on display 100 years from now as something famous and ground-breaking from this era.

You’re already a successful and well established artist, what made you pursue NFT art as a medium?

NFT is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen! I’m so happy to see artists who made art just for fun and for their followers are selling for thousands of dollars! Somehow with my moving imagery I couldn’t fit into Photography nor Digital Art, so NFT was the perfect solution for me to monetize my Animations.

What inspired the work in your first NFT drop?

Seeing other artists on twitter winning.

What are your short plans for the next NFT drop?

I want to work on some old PSDs and animate them. Before NFT animating my works was just for fun, but now I see why I should do it. I’m very excited how the NFT world would take it.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Be okay with yourself enough to fail and then start again.

If you could go back and do one thing differently, what would it be?

I would go back and laugh on people who told me to stop what I’m doing. :D I still remember that one time I went to a portfolio review, printing all my work for a lot of money and showing it to a “famous” curator. She said I should stop doing Photoshop and do only Photography, because what I do cannot be taken seriously. I remember crying and being very insecure and hurt. I felt something inside me which was all against her opinion and I continued with what I felt like was my path and my true authentic self through creating those self-portraits. Many times I thought about creating less colorful, more minimal artworks but that would be forcing a style which I’m not - just to be accepted and fit into the current trends, so I said F it, I will do what my “sixth sense” is telling me to do.

Do you have any unrealised or unfinished projects?

I have many. I’m frustrated many times for not having more hands or sleeping less so I could create day and night for months to realize what I have in mind.

On Superrare

@floraborsiofficial

Superrare: Top 10 Picks by Designcollector, April