One accidental photograph was all it took to change Movsum’s life.
Deep in the world of hip-hop freestyle dancing, the artist faced a career crossroads when COVID-19 shut down the performance circuit. Turning to photography to ease his mind, a fateful outing led to a creative breakthrough that would define his next chapter.
“I accidentally took a picture of a building in which I saw everything reflected, a vision of my lifestyle from colors to lines,” he recalls. “After that, I decided to get acquainted with digital art.”
Honing his skills in Adobe Illustrator and Procreate, Movsum drew inspiration from the music and sneaker culture that had defined his years in dance, as well as artist influences like Wassily Kandinsky, in finding his footing with colorful abstract art imbued with a sense of movement. Since entering web3, Movsum has minted his work across SuperRare and Foundation, building a following on the strength of collections like “Geometric Comics,” “Predator Forgiveness,” and “Geometric Contradiction.”
Every week, nft now’s Next Up showcases a new artist from our curated list of ascendant talents who have been making significant waves throughout web3. This week, our spotlight turns to Movsum.
nft now: How did you first become interested/involved in digital art?
Movsum: I came to digital art during COVID-19. Before digital art, I was engaged in hip-hop freestyle dancing, and at the time of COVID-19, I got into a creative crisis, I wanted something more in my dance and in my art. This is what I have lived with since childhood and the days flew by, and the torment increased. I didn’t know what I was dancing for, battles ceased to interest me, and freestyle began to seem like something ordinary. And the other day, when I was calming myself going outside photographing architecture, I accidentally took a picture of a building in which I saw everything reflected, a vision of my lifestyle from colors to lines, after that, I decided to get acquainted with digital art, or to be precise, I started with graphic design (at that time I did not know that there is such a direction as digital art). And it all started when I opened Adobe Illustrator and accidentally drew a few lines, then I continued to improvise with them and this moment became the most important decisive moment in my life. I saw my dance moves in my lines. I saw the shapes of the human body that I saw in Kandinsky’s book. I didn’t understand what it was, but that’s what I got in the dialogue. I started creating just digital art and sharing it on Instagram without thinking about anything, and then I decided to get a job as a graphic designer in order to combine my passion for digital art with earnings, but after I was fired from my job for the reason that I have no taste and vision, I decided to devote myself completely to digital art and its aesthetics.
“My art is a mix of hip-hop culture and sneakers, architecture, and purity aesthetics of colors and unique shapes.”
MOVSUM
How would you describe your art?
My art is a mix of hip-hop culture and sneakers, architecture, and purity aesthetics of colors and unique shapes. I see my art as colorful and bright, but at the same time strict, which finds a balance very well in chaos, where contradictory colors combined with contradictory shapes create something unique and harmonious communication between each other. I always strive in my art to show the simplicity and aesthetics of forms and composition and their harmonious dynamism because anyway, in the end, we all come to aesthetics and enjoy it, it doesn’t matter if it’s the aesthetics of ordinary perception that is embedded in social mores, or aesthetics that is not immediately clear, but with deepening you begin to see and feel the aesthetics. Like the whole aesthetics of our life and nature.
What’s your process like? And where do you usually find inspiration?
My process is always diverse. I always try to create what I feel at the moment in my life. I think always moving away from one thing and discovering new things in my forms is one of my great passions in my art. I look for inspiration everywhere, I love going to museums and galleries and watching different art, but most of all, I look for inspiration while listening and finding new beatmakers who write beats for hip-hop dancers, from battles and images of dancers. I really like to go to a sneaker store and look at different models and their designs and colors, and study the history of sneaker design, clothing, and the designers themselves. Book covers and posters of the 20th century. I am very passionate and often draw inspiration from the 20th-century avant-garde and the way artists spoke through colors and shapes. Architecture has played a big role in my art. All this inspires me to seek perfection where there is none, striving to leave my legacy for future generations.
“I look for inspiration while listening and finding new beatmakers who write beats for hip-hop dancers, from battles and images of dancers.”
MOVSUM
What was your breakthrough moment in web3?
There have been many breakthrough moments in the year and a half since I joined web3, and my art began to be appreciated and recognized in the space, but this is just the beginning of my career. But I will tell you about some that inspire me to go and run after my dream. The first was when GVG brought me into his collection, becoming my first collector, and told about me on Twitter, at that moment, my journey began, and it gave me a lot of inspiration and drive that drives me to this day and the last vividly memorable is when I received an offer for collaboration from a well-known artist Jesperish (I thought it was a dream at the time) and got into the 1OF1 collection. And I consider this one of my big recognition as an artist at the beginning of my career. Since it always gives me great motivation to get respect from the adult generation. And all this has given me more passion to grow and confidently create art for the future generation.
What are the biggest challenges facing rising artists in web3?
I think a new or young artist faces a problem of how to show their art to a large audience, with marketing, misunderstanding of the market. In all this, they begin to get lost and do not understand how to properly arrange the time between the creation of art and its promotion and sale.
“Be yourself and be honest. Just look for perfection where there is none.”
MOVSUM
What advice do you have for rising artists in this space?
I would advise rising artists to be versatile, to draw inspiration from everything around them, not to try to imitate someone, not to succumb to many trends, to express themselves as much as possible, and always get out of their comfort zone and explore more. Experiment so that it brings pleasure and a lot of experience. Be yourself and be honest. Just look for perfection where there is none because it is in search of it that you will not find perfection, but you will find what you started looking for. And the rest will just come.
The post Next Up: Movsum Channels Dancefloor Rhythms Through Abstract Art appeared first on nft now.