Artist's talk : Let's meet Disurreal

During this interview, we will learn more about the artist behind Disureal. It wasn't long ago that I discovered Disurreal's art ,thanks to a friend of mine. In its practice, surrealism has never been my favorite, but this time I found myself being captivated by Disurreal's worlds. Finally, we had the opportunity to conduct this mini-talk.

Could you tell me a bit about yourself?

My origin is Slavic. However, I have lived in the United Kingdom for quite some time, where I studied Art and worked on some projects including my own.

How would you briefly describe your art?

Surreal, dream reality. I just like this style, it feels nice to look at so I'm trying to recreate it. It's a bit like a glitch or old fashion 3D glasses or visual illusions that inspire me as well. When we talk about style I am more into colourful and surreal things, a bit uncanny. I focus more on 3D art at the moment, but I love traditional media like charcoal, pastels, paints and of course collage. I like to portray feelings, it doesn't have to be a finished piece: it can be a sketch, sometimes something I read or listen to inspire me and sometimes it’s from a dream I had.

Why and under which circumstances did you decide to start your journey in Digital Art?

Deviantart was quite big when I was a kid and all of my favourite artists were using digital media. So, I got a Wacom bamboo for x-mas one day and I started to draw. Before that I even drew with a mouse (and it was horrible but I had so much fun). Digital art allows mistakes, and it's cheaper in the long run. I got to draw traditionally a lot at my school and spend 16+ hours on practical drawings and needed something lighter, easy to set up, less messy but still fun. And you can use all the colours without having to worry about the financial support for the materials.

How do you work? And which Artists inspire you?

Digitally, I work with Photoshop and Clip studio. For animation I work with TV Paint, After Effects, Toon Boom, depending on the task. For 3D it's Maya, Cinema4D and Substance or if I fancy sculpting, I would go for Zbrush. My favourite painter is Zdzisław Beksiński as I love his nightmare paintings. From digital artists I have so many that I can't just name just a few. I like cartoonish style, I look for great colour matching and composition, usually I look for the quality of linework or just goofy stuff really. But then I follow some tattoo artists, sculptors, classical painters and 3D creators too, they all do great art.

Why are you experimenting with digital collage and creating these surrealistic versions of reality?

I started collages as a quick way to express myself, sometimes a painting can take a long time and may end up disappointing. So, If I have a quick idea or something is stuck in my head, I would find pictures I associate with that feeling. Or I would take lyrics from a song as an inspiration and look for stock pictures this way. I don't think it is as deep as another reality, for me it's more of an effort to explain difficult themes so I put them together as an art piece.

Is surrealism a movement that you feel your art belongs to, or do you feel that it is just the medium to create worlds without the theoretical perspective of surrealism?

To be honest, classical surrealism has a few problematic figures in it. I don't think I agree with it very much, it was full of white straight males that wanted to be original and cool. I like the concept of something that looks real but it's weird, uncanny, a bit distorted or a strange pairing of things and that’s what I am going for. Generally speaking I work with animal figures and I get influenced by spirituality. My work comments on women's issues as well.

Do you feel that the crypto world and the Defi network in the NFTS production is helping more people to create?

NFT gives a better starting chance for women creators, people of colour, LGBTQA+, people from challenged backgrounds and that's something that is pushing the artworld to move forward. Before the rise of NFT’s, art galleries used to be even more elitist and quite monothematic. A naked lady here and there, some shapes all made by small amount of people that "got" into the club. Galleries are fun, I love TATE modern, I admire classical artists as well. Overall, there are some places that’s worth exploring and some others that are not. In conclusion the NFT’s world it’s the beginning of a new era for artists, and it's a shame not to be a part of it.

As a digital artist do you see any problems that concern you about the NFT market world?

Well, concerns of mine are the impact it has on climate, but then again big corpos are trying to blame small artists that are just trying to make a living out of climate change and that's a view that I do not agree with.

Click on the link to find more of Disurreal 's work https://www.instagram.com/disurreal/