Digital Art
Peer Kriesel works primarily in analogue - with watercolor / acrylic paint and pigment ink on paper - but purely digital works have also been created for years - they are hidden objects or abstractions of grimaces and masks.
The substantive background of his artistic work is the digital world - the digital transformation, the change in communication, the acceleration of processes and the mass of data that is increasing due to the steadily increasing number of posts, tweets, advertisements, news and YouTube uploads becomes.
Thematically, the artist deals with the structuring of the crowd in his works - through geometric shapes or lined up in a row (in the series of "Essences")). The viewer can discover parallel tools in the digital world: such as search engines and filter options that help the user to make the mass of data understandable and still understandable.
In his digital works, which he presents as NFTs (Non-fungible Token) on different platforms, Peer Kriesel allows the analog and the digital world to merge: In his FRTZN block series, he animates digital drawings that are created on the iPad, but The digital brush simulation makes it look like analog pencil drawings or oil paintings.
In one work, a figure in the crowd switches off the light and new figures or situations become visible as if on a second level. In other works, the artist has a crumpled drawing that was previously drawn digitally rotated in space. The buyer of the NFT can download “Unlockable Content” - including the mysterious, uncompleted drawing as a high-resolution digital file for the digital frame.
Since 2021, in addition to his focus on works on paper, new series of works have been created, such as the Floating Essences, the Blocks as animated exploded drawings or the Shakamoopsies (peerkriesel.com/shakamoopsies) in purely digital form.
In the series of works The Unknown Clowns from the series The Unknown Portraits the artist lets the works generated randomly with JavaScript and HTML from 11 element types, each consisting of 100 digitally painted variations, geometric shapes and other factors such as color and positions. The result is 400 unique portraits that thematize the portrait in the digital world.
In the works generated by chance and JavaScript, Kriesel is concerned with the relationship between man and machine - in the broadest sense - and with values in today's age.
It's about how works can be created in digital automation and what that does to us humans.
The series of works "The Unknown Portraits" is generally about traditional painting, which is created on the digital medium, but simulates analog brushstrokes.
In the generated works, elements painted by hand on the ipad are recombined by chance and Javascript with each reload and result in a new portrait again and again. Every picture that is so technically created becomes an original. From 1,555 created portraits, Peer selected exactly 455 works that triggered something in him within a fraction of a second ("The Unknown Collectors").
The others were "simply" deleted.
The artist can only determine the work beforehand in the painting process and later in the selection process.
The series of works by The Unknown Family Portraits was created based on the same principle. The first series consists of overpainted family photos and can be assigned to the Achim series , which so far only consisted of analogous works.
This series of works includes painting over old postcards, documents, papers and family photos from my great-uncle, Achim.
They tell a personal but also a forgotten story – on old, aesthetically exciting surfaces and backgrounds, new figures and a world from today emerge in contrast.
In today's digital world, the flood of digital images and avatars, profile pictures on social media channels and self-portrayal on the Internet, these often very rare portrait photos seem very bizarre and yet incredibly exciting.
Most of the time, there is only this one picture of the family members or maybe another picture – but not visible to everyone, but hidden in photo albums in boxes in the attic. They are relics from another time. And the people are often unknown – despite family ties.
The Avatar is a random combination of 555 drawings + scaffolding – 10 elements with each 55 variations randomly combined via HTML + JS + 5 possible masks + bgcolour. A curated selection of the best 111 Avatars builds an own "pfp project": The Avatars.
The Friendly Strangers are 100 digitally hand drawn unique artworks. Each of them is made <= 5 minutes. The question: What is a minute worth in times of digitalization and automation?
Artworks/Portfolio – Digital Art/NFTs An overview (PDF-Download – 5MB)
NFT platforms on which Peer Kriesel is represented:
Tezos-Blockchain (XTZ)
OBJKT.com
versum.xyz
teia.art/peerkriesel
rarible.com/peer
Solana-Blockchain (SOL)
formfunction.xyz/@peerkriesel
Algorand-Blockchain (ALGO)
dartroom.xyz/artists/peerkriesel
Ethereum-Blockchain (ETH)
knownorigin.io/peerkriesel
foundation.app/peerkriesel
opensea.io/peerkriesel
rarible.com/peerkriesel
NFTs and the art world
Blockchain technology and NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens) have arrived in the art market - and now?
At the moment, it is no longer possible to avoid the topic: Blockchain, NFT, cryptocurrency and metaverse are being discussed everywhere. There are now countless YouTube videos, more and more TV reports, podcasts and documentaries that shed light on this technology, as well as more and more protagonists and experts giving lectures on it.
Today, there is talk of a "gold rush" and "NFT hype".
But what will change in the art world?
Some assume that in 20-30 years there will be no more analogue art because the young generation, Generation Z, no longer goes to galleries and prefers to spend their time virtually in the decentralised metaverse. Will galleries and also institutional institutions such as museums become superfluous as exhibition spaces and art and culture mediators?
Are blockchain, NFT, cryptocurrency, metaverse and co. just hype or or in what form and with what function will they remain and is the difference to the traditional art business so enormous?
In a text, maybe an essay, I will summarize the topic from my point of view and with my experiences that I have been able to gather since the beginning of 2021.
An essay (in German language):
Download NFTs und die Kunstwelt – Peer Kriesel – 2022 / PDF (Deutsch)