Kolectiv Artist Series October 2022 — Tatjana Lee
Tom: Let’s start off with an intro!
Tatjana: I am a traditional artist with a Korean / German background and I entered the NFT space around Feb/March 2021. I have a pretty diverse career development from medical school, being a Mom, Public Relations, CI and Webdesign and traditional art. That is why my main topics in art are about identity, diversity and the ability of magical thinking of our childhood. I want to inspire people and open minds. It was so much fun to enter this magical world of new art with the NFT community. With my knowledge from Web- and Corporate Design, I was excited to bring traditional art concepts to the digital world.
Tom: That’s probably the most diverse career path I’ve heard from an artist actually. That said, we already know that you have a physical art studio yourself. Having a physical portfolio studio and projects while also being an early adopter of NFT art — Could you elaborate on the story of how you transitioned from one medium to the other?
Tatjana: When I entered the NFT space, I felt like a kid in a candy shop. As an artist I try to express my thoughts and questions in different creative ways. The NFT community was and still is a special place. It doesn’t follow the unofficial restrictions of the traditional art market. I see more freedom and diversity but there is still much more potential to go deeper in terms of art concepts.
When I dived in, I tried out different digital tools I used to know from my time in Webdesign. It was easy because I already had established my main topics and the meta content stayed the same. My aim is to build a bridge between traditional paintings and digital art by using technology like Augmented Reality and AI.
Tom: If I may ask, when did you enter the NFT space and started creating in it?
Tatjana: About Feb/March 2021
Tom: I see! So with that experience, how would you contrast between the NFT world and the physical scene?
Tatjana: This is a good question. Some weeks ago I had a German gallery owner as interview partner in my weekly Twitter Space. She saw the art movement in the NFT space as the new art avant-garde and I would totally agree with that.
Tom: Are there any differences in the approaches you use (or procedures you follow) between physical art and NFT art?
Tatjana: With digital art, it’s easier to get lost in procrastination while searching for inspiration or material. When you work on an acrylic painting it’s also not possible to save the steps in between. At some point you have to make decisions which are irreversible. The states of crisis between the states of flow during the work process are more pointed. Working on a digital art piece sometimes means permanent crisis or flow for hours
But it’s often rewarded with pieces of work that you can evolve in other artworks.
Tom: That’s the first time I’ve heard from that perspective! It’s definitely interesting to know — I’m sure a lot of people, especially non-artists have never thought of it that way. Let’s talk about your artwork. We noticed a lot of your artwork revolve around the depiction of faces, or emotions. Would you like to elaborate on that?
Tatjana: The face is an important part of our outer identity and also a mirror our inner identity. A disturbance of our inner identity will be visible in our face as well as a distortion of our face will have a major impact of our inner identity. The ability to read the mimic of a face is essential for survival of the human species. That’s why we start learning to interpret it as babies. In addition to artistic abstraction, it is another channel of communication in my artworks that you cannot avoid.
This communication works in a very unconscious way. I find it very interesting that in the NFT community avatars are so popular. It is a popular way to increase a feeling of togetherness or to set oneself apart. Just like Makeup or piercings etc.
Tom: Is this what exactly is reflected in your work, Crypto Mind, in the Kolectiv Crypto 2021 collection?
Tatjana: Crypto Mind shows the feeling of being overwhelmed by the endless new impressions, but also a state of flow that takes place through the stimulated creative process inside. That’s how I felt when I started with NFTs. With my work I want to stay a little bit indifferent as I see the viewers experience as an essential part of the work. The viewer should have the opportunity to tend in one direction or the other when looking at the work, depending on what mood he brings with him at the time.
Tom: I think most of us felt the same too when we started. Overwhelmed by endless new impressions — isn’t that amazingly accurate. I guess the stimulated creative process part only happens with creative artists though…
Any non-art related hobbies? I’d imagine you would be quite busy and occupied enough as an artist and a mother.
Tatjana: My daughters are almost grown up. Now I benefit from their knowledge about social media trends
I love Korean traditional archery and running in the woods.
Tom: That’s very cool. The generation gap can prove itself to be useful now I guess.
Before we conclude this interview, are there any projects you’re currently working on and would like to show them to the Kolectiv community?
Tatjana: I just finished the work “Zeitgeist”
I’m working on my RL avatar project “Bagabonds” which you can also find on social media: https://twitter.com/bagabondsontour https://www.instagram.com/bagabonds/
Also this:
https://foundation.app/@tatjanalee/tlee/5
Brave New World 5of5 | Foundation
The Kolectiv Artist Series is a series of monthly interviews that we pick the brains of our favourite artists. Each interview is done live, on-the-spot with minimal to no edits to preserve the artists’ exact words.
