Interview with Jos

My name is José but everybody calls me Jos and I am an Argentinian artist from Buenos Aires. My main studies are related to music as an orchestra conductor and composer, and I worked for many years in composing film music before starting my path as a digital artist. While being in the music industry, I was already finding interest in studies related to the history of plastic art. I started making digital designs using Photoshop for fun and eventually, I started designing cover art for commissions.

Within my work, I create surreal scenarios from the juxtaposition, combination and amalgamation of pre-existing images. I want my art to be interesting to the eye, and to contain just the right amount of information to tell a story, convey an emotion, and generate a certain mobilization in the viewer. 

The world is absurd and unfair, but at the same time  it is absolutely wonderful. Those two considerations are always present when I try to communicate that "something"; which is always related to the link we have with the cosmos.

I was always interested in art; I was in music bands, I wrote poetry, published pieces and I drew a lot when I was a child. But in music school, I had plastic arts classes as a complementary subject and I was passionate about the journey we took through the history of art. 

Then I started to go through it myself as a digital artist and within that path, I was always well surrounded: my wife is a pianist and one of the most talented artists I know, my sister is a filmmaker and my friends are musicians and writers. I am lucky to be surrounded by inspiration. 

Unfortunately, in my country, artistic careers are poorly paid and it is not always easy to make a living from art. My parents always accompanied my efforts and luckily I found work activities related to my interests that also gave me time and resources to work on my art. Not long ago, I took the courage to consider myself an artist and now I embrace my role and celebrate it.

After two years of selling my designs for commissions and having been called by some galleries, an old friend asked me to help him as a consultant in a process of artistic investment. He told me about crypto art and his interest in buying works and asked me to give him input to select the artists with the greatest potential. It was thanks to this request that I became fully immersed in SuperRare as a spectator and after helping my colleague, I thought about applying to sell my art in which I got accepted. 

The emotions at play in the beginning within that process are not simple. The immense joy generated by a sale is followed by a tremendous anxiety about future uncertainty, about continuing to create without losing the pleasure of creating or artistic criteria, but with the vertigo of knowing that the exposure must be taken advantage of. It is not only about sales but also about the construction of a personal role in the community, because the ecosystem became immense all at once and occupying a space is a very demanding task. 

Over time, the links with collectors and referents mutated to create a new dynamic. I was lucky enough to work as a curator for SuspendedSoul, a small but very interesting platform, and I dedicated myself to writing art reviews about colleagues who made their drops on it. That way, I got to know the artists and their art in a deep and beautiful way, and I connected with many of the artists I admired the most, who luckily always found my words rewarding. During all this time I received countless expressions of support from collectors and colleagues, samples of support that I try to return on a daily basis and that I feel infinitely fortunate for.

My favorite NFT is Catello's Emulate.asimov. It has been since the first time I saw it. It is a beautiful work that transcends time because it has a certain futurism and an exquisite play of light that could be Flemish or Baroque. I admire the work of hundreds of colleagues and in particular, artists like Gryun Kim, Omentejovem, Clement Morin, Rik Oostenbroek, MiraRuido, Peter Tarka, Nikolina Petolas, etc. With many of them, we have some cordial exchange but with several, we have become friends. Many of the artists I always admired today are generous fellow travelers with whom we have a bond of friendship.

Today, whoever enters this space enters a very crowded space where it seems impossible to be seen. But the truth is that every artist who is consistent in the production of good material and generates community by supporting other colleagues ends up finding an opportunity to show their art to the world. That process can be very exhausting and full of anxiety, and in that sense, I believe that we must work on patience and the construction of honest and supportive links. 

There are wonderful collectors who are attentive and willing to listen and see. There are generous artists willing to share art and to support new forms of expression. Genuine art will eventually find its space.

Natureverse illustrates what I believe will be our future: a hybrid space between the natural and the digital where the boundaries of both realities are thin, if not blurred. In that future, I believe we will be able to create virtual scenarios emulating nature but also intervening it at will. We will be engineers of surreality because we will be able to create at will. A mountain with the mechanical heart of a concrete staircase... the recreation of a dream that will seem real, or perhaps it will be. 

However, my fear is that our love for the wonder of nature today is not matched by an exercise of care and preservation. Learning or failing is what is urgently needed before it is too late.