UniArts’ Interview with Nisky

About Artist

Nisky’s works are the result of an ever-lasting cross-disciplinary interest in fine arts, music, literature, and cinema. “Metacollage’’ is a new concept evolved from the artist’s practice on paper and canvas — an attempt to “surpass the limits of collage” and to form a “superior unit” between painting and other art forms, based on the “syntactic structure” of different materials through a chain of chemical reactions, ultimately to attain a “complete osmosis”. For this creative enterprise, the artist opts for materials that are rich in contradictions and struggles, thus revisiting traditions while moving forward.

Since 2012, the artist has been exclusively represented by Galerie Dumonteil. Nisky’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions, including Phosphenes I & II (2017), The Interlacement Landscape (2014), The Circular Maze (2013), Multi-Nisky (2011), etc. The artist has also participated in international art fairs such as PAD Paris, PAD London, Art021, and Jing Art Beijing, etc. And his work has been collected by both Chinese and international private collectors and corporations, among which includes a permanent display at Xintiandi, Shanghai.

Artist Talk:

Q1. As an artist, how would you describe yourself? How do you usually describe your own work?

Answer: My name is Nisky (made up of ni + sky). I was particularly fond of Italian and Eastern European films when in college and found that the names of many of my favorite directors mostly end with ni and sky, so I came up with this name. My works are mainly easel paintings. In addition to painting, I also do music (composing lyrics and some arrangements), and recently released a 6-song Ep “Zero, 24”.

I think my work is like a personal diary. Many of the things I think and experience while creating are incorporated in my works.

Q2: What is your working method? What first attracted you to working on the Internet?

Answer: I still mainly use acrylic as my medium.

I usually play a lot of different music when I work. But lately, I like to listen to audio books, and detective stories are my recent favorite.

I studied art and design in college, and the software I learned at that time was mainly Ps+Ai, so I also accumulated a lot of digital creations. Of course, now digital creation, mainly relying on tablet computers and cell phones, is super convenient.

Q3. Why did you start to enter the NFT field? How long have you been doing NFT artwork?

Answer: I’ve been doing NFT for less than a year after some friends of mine strongly recommended it to me and the field caught my attention.

But many of my digital works are actually created in college, so in that case … I’ve been doing digital art for 10 years already.

Q4. What is the next step from the perspective of NFT art? What advice would you give to other aspiring NFT artists?

Answer: I think NFT can develop in any field. But actually I don’t know, because the world is moving too fast and unpredictable now. I think artists still need to stay calm and sober, not to be stagnant but not to go with the flow.

That said, I’ll be releasing a full-length album of 13 songs next year, and I hope it will be an NFT album by then!

Q5. Do you have any ambitions in life that are not related to art?

Answer: I’ve been obsessed with detective stories for the last few years, so I want to be a writer of mysteries. I have quite a few interesting shenanigans in mind, so maybe some of them will be used in my artwork later.