REPRESENTED: SKYE NICOLAS

ARTIST

MAGAZINE

EXHIBITION

Skye Nicolas speaks to Anika Meier about music and nostalgia, digital art and pop culture.

NOSTALGIA AND PIXEL PAINTINGS

SKYE NICOLAS: LIVING IN A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

"In healthy doses, nostalgia can be a warm security blanket that allows us to heal, giving us the strength to take another step forward when dealing with anxieties about the future." – Skye Nicolas

Skye Nicolas is a post-conceptual artist living and working in Seattle, Washington.

Ranging from large format paintings, filmmaking, photography, public space interventions, sculpture, and digital artworks, post-conceptual artist Skye Nicolas blends elegantly composed amalgamations of vivid imagery with familiarity and the skewing of timelines through various means of precisely executed appropriation. His thoughtful method of reassigning of pop culture references reveals a complex interweaving of key components in his work, highlighting concept and composition as core fundamentals.

He investigates the role of memory in the post-internet age through intimate conversation and hidden dialogue wherein nostalgia plays a vital ingredient in defining a recognizable visual language and signature style. The complex interweaving of a conceptually layered armature and a visually poetic distillation process inspires the creation of works that feature a recurring theme that he refers to as Induced Nostalgia. This cerebral phenomenon elucidates the full bandwidth of an induced visceral experience manifested in the transmission and exploration of personal narratives and private myths—inviting us to reflect and reconcile with the powerful forces and events that have shaped our present selves.

Skye Nicolas has shown in New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Calgary, and at the Dallas Contemporary art museum. His work has been featured in Kunstforum International, Whitewall magazine, Vogue España, and Self Service. 

As co-founder of the art collective Organic Material, he has created work for the collective’s collaborative project, Event Horizon, which debuted during the first Art NFT Linz festival at the Francisco Carolinum Linz Museum, UNESCO City of Media Arts Linz, Austria. The work, entitled Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Skies Are Blue, has since been added to the museum’s permanent collection.

Get in touch for additional information about available works. 

Inquiry

Skye Nicolas brings forth a collection of 100 digital artworks that undergo his distinctive process of distillation. Masterworks by Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Manet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Degas, Pissarro, and Toulouse-Lautrec are rendered as pixel paintings, inviting the viewer to contemplate intricate and delicate compositional constructs.
As these masterpieces undergo the transformative journey into pixels, a paradox is revealed—one that is both enchantingly accessible and philosophically reflective. This richly vibrant collection resonates with the nostalgia of the artist's childhood, harking back to the 1980s, when he first embarked on explorations of basic computer graphics on early systems like the Apple II. Embracing the limitations of an emulator, these works embody the artist's predilection for utilizing ubiquitous tools in the art production process to thoughtfully explore pertinent topics of appropriation and authorship. "It is truly a privilege to be living in a time when artists are able to reference, remix, modify, and creatively utilize images of such iconic masterworks—all made possible by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s generous Open Access Policy. The MET’s decision to release these images into the public domain is a step forward in cultivating and encouraging creativity." – Skye Nicolas
ABOUT THE NFT Contract address: <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xb8b3b0e420ac16cdc5faeb8a8b0afd26a5a36623">0xb8b3b0e420ac16cdc5faeb8a8b0afd26a5a36623</a> Blockchain: Ethereum Token standard: ERC-721 Metadata: Frozen and decentralized ABOUT THE FLOPPY DISK <meta charset="utf-8">Collectors may also choose to collect a physical piece, as each pixel painting comes with a still image jpeg and txt file written on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, ready-made, labeled, and signed by the artist. Collectors who would like to receive the floppy disk: Please get in touch via email (nfts@expanded.art) with your edition number and your address. EXPANDED.ART will send the floppy disk to you in a padded envelope.

Quintessence

View the NFT (Tezos) on <a href="https://objkt.one/t/85">objkt.one</a>. ABOUT EXPANDED.ART x objkt.one All NFTs (1 of 1s) will be available via auctions on objkt.one on August 31, 6 PM CET.
ABOUT THE WORK SHUNDO ODDISH by Skye Nicolas integrates an extraordinarily elusive virtual creature with nature. Such representations of supernatural beings invading and residing in our physical universe have their aesthetic roots in the classic yōkai scroll art of 16th-century Japan depicting mythical monsters, illustrating a rich heritage of fantastic tales told throughout the Edo period. 
In 2016, the artist played the popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go under the name VICIOUSYOUTH. After four years of immersive gameplay, he has encountered, captured, and successfully collected several "Shundo" Pokémon: exceedingly scarce digital creatures, an amalgam of "shiny" Pokémon, a highly rare and sought-after variant, and a "hundo," which signifies it has perfect IVs or individual values, broken down into three statistics: attack, defence, and stamina (HP). These metrics combined make for an almost impossible catch. The work is comprised of a video capture featuring Shundo Oddish, caught on October 5th, 2019 in Santa Monica, California. The elusive grass-type Pokémon is released in a lush physical environment observed through augmented reality (AR)—an idyllic Japanese garden with its carefully curated collection of exotic flora serves as the verdant threshold for the creature. The boundary between tangible nature and the ethereal is breached, compelling us to confront the intricate interplay of existence and simulation.
SHUNDO ODDISH peers beyond the veil of emergent AR technologies, confronting the ephemeral nature of value extracted from the fertile soil of new digital economies, where precious digital assets are anointed as revered treasures. Ultimately, the whimsical yet disarming piece exists as a poignant reflection of our ever-growing collective fascination with the alchemy of augmented experiences. Suspended between dream and reality, we are made privy to a liminal space where the boundaries of the physical and the virtual dissolve and the botanical dances with the digital.
SHUNDO ODDISH echoes Jannis Kounellis’ Untitled/12 Horses, 1969, a seminal moment in postmodern art wherein the incorporation of live animals was essential to the creation of the artwork. Nicolas reframes Kounellis’ gambit with a contemporary context explored through the magical lens of augmented reality, adding new layers of inquiry while exploring the phenomenon of our increasing parasocial relationships with anthropomorphized digital entities and their role within an evolving digital economy.

SHUNDO ODDISH

View the NFT (Tezos) on <a href="https://objkt.one/t/86">objkt.one</a>. ABOUT EXPANDED.ART x objkt.one All NFTs (1 of 1s) will be available via auctions on objkt.one on August 31, 6 PM CET.
ABOUT THE WORK SHUNDO ODDISH REDUX by Skye Nicolas melds the enigmatic aesthetics of 16th-century Japanese yōkai scroll art with the unmistakable contemporary lens of augmented reality. 
The artist's four-year odyssey within the immersive realm of Pokémon Go as VICIOUSYOUTH constitutes the very marrow of this piece—an artistic pilgrimage fueled by the pursuit of exceptional digital creatures, none more compelling than the fabled "Shundo" Pokémon, a compelling synthesis of the elusive "shiny" Pokémon variant and the scarcely attainable "hundo" breed, renowned for their perfect individual values, bespeaks an intricate coalescence of rarity and significance. 
Nestled within the enchanting embrace of a meticulously crafted Japanese garden, an exceedingly rare variant of a grass-type Pokémon emerges through the veil of augmented reality. This is no ordinary encounter—it is a collision of tangible reality and the ethereal digital realm, beckoning us to meditate upon the nebulous boundary where existence converges with simulation. 
Painstakingly crafted with emojis, a subtle commentary surfaces that mirrors the precarious societal tensions in an era shadowed by ecological uncertainty. This provocative jumble of ideogrammatic symbols captures the very essence of our communication, imbued with satirical undertones and the weighty levity that has come to define our discourse within the Anthropocene epoch, where the spectre of ecological upheaval looms large.
Beneath this vibrantly playful veneer lies an implicit homage to Jannis Kounellis' seminal "Untitled/12 Horses, 1969,'' where the mélange of living creatures served as the conceptual heartbeat. The present work, Shundo Oddish Redux, navigates a contemporary dance between history and innovation. By casting VICIOUSYOUTH's personal voyage as both narrative and archetype, this tableau resonates with the digital zeitgeist, wherein the ethereal plane and corporeal reality intertwine. Echoing Kounellis, this piece beseeches viewers to dissect their rapport with the augmented realm and the treasures it harbors.

SHUNDO ODDISH REDUX

SKYE NICOLAS | THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART

MORE FROM THIS ARTIST

In celebration of youth culture and coming-of-age tropes, "NO, DON'T DISAPPEAR [WM-2]" from Skye Nicolas' Walkman series elevates portable music devices such as the Sony Walkman as cerebral or dematerialized readymades: conceptual digital representations of physical objects contextualized as digital artifacts containing data.
The series typifies Nicolas<meta charset="utf-8">' pixel paintings in which remixed images are reduced to their essential structure, the outline. Graphic elements are streamlined into nebulous shimmering pixels that dance across the contrasting dark background of the digital canvas. Declarative statements glide across the screen (often lifted from 1980’s and 1990’s era song lyrics), serve as both internal dialogue and a crucial visual detail to complete the digital painting’s overall composition. The result of this process of reduction and layered storytelling is a visually poetic distillation in which the viewer finds themselves occupying; an intangible dreamscape atmosphere arousing an induced nostalgia that seduces and captivates the senses.
ABOUT THE NFT 
Collectors purchase the physical edition on EXPANDED.ART. The artist mints the NFT on Tezos and sends it via Airdrop to the collector’s wallet. 
ABOUT THE EDITION NUMBER
The editions are numbered randomly, i.e. the edition number is not chronologically assigned to the time of order receipt. All LIMITED EDITIONS are authenticated with a Certificate of Authenticity signed and numbered by the artist on the back of the print.

NO, DON’T DISAPPEAR [WM-2]

Originally released in 1981, the Sony WM-2 epitomizes the hallmark of the Walkman product identity. With all its original accessories, printed ephemera, and packaging intact, Skye Nicolas elevates a historically exceptional technological specimen to a readymade that celebrates youth culture—its essence perfectly embedded in the work as it revisits the power of music and personal myths while reflecting on several generations’ emotional attachment to these once ubiquitous devices. Meta prose lifted from 1980’s and 1990’s era song lyrics is carefully engraved on a custom aluminum brass plate that is affixed to the surface of the device. Invoking the age-old practice of inscription, these poetic declarations recall the etching of esoteric text onto sacred objects and artifacts of spiritual importance. The conscious choice of employing non-corrosive alloys explores existential topics of permanence and humankind’s fascination with immortality.
The artist’s creation of a mixtape examines the ritualistic nature of the craft through performance. The specificity of carefully chosen songs annotates a galaxy of personal meaning colored by magical moments. The readymade’s anachronistic presence in a physical space is a viscerally heartfelt experience that draws upon the power of induced nostalgia. As a physical object, it is the direct complementary inverse and counterpart to what the artist refers to as dematerialized or cerebral readymades, as characterized in Nicolas’ definitive Walkman Series of digital NFT artworks.

ANGELS FALL LIKE RAIN [WM-2]

MORE VOICES OF WEB3

VOICE GEMS x Skye Nicolas

In the series I CHOOSE YOU!, Skye Nicolas continues his exploration of liminal spaces (defined as transitional or transformative zones of existence), leveraging ubiquitous AI-driven technology through the widely popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go.

SKYE NICOLAS | I CHOOSE YOU!

Post-conceptual artist Skye Nicolas utilizes a variety of mediums, including large-format paintings, filmmaking, photography, public space interventions, sculpture, and digital artworks, to combine elegantly composed amalgamations of vivid imagery with familiarity and the skewing of timelines. His methodical reassignment of pop culture references demonstrates the intricate interweaving of important elements in his work, emphasizing concept and composition as the two most important basics. 

The artist reflects on the intellectual idea of conceptual art in the age of AI.

ESSAY BY SKYE NICOLAS

META PROSE AND THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART

A NEW BEGINNING | GALLERY

17 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future through digital art, video art and AR. In collaboration with VerticalCrypto Art in Berlin.

THE PROMISES OF AI

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY | GALLERY

More than 15 artists explore the duality of kitsch and its critique of modernity, technology, and online culture. Bright, pastel-coloured fantasy worlds filled with unicorns, animals, and other fluffy creatures evoke feelings of tenderness and innocence. But is cuteness always this innocent? 

GROUP EXHIBITION

THE CUTE SHOW | SHOWROOM

ARTISTS 

What would Marshall McLuhan write today? Very likely text messages. The global village is now largely connected via messenger apps and social media. Life is closeness to strangers and friends, changing every second. Thoughts and feelings are shared as they are thought and lived. 

AN EXHIBITION OF MIXED MESSAGES

THE TEXT IS THE MESSAGE | GALLERY

VOICES OF WEB3 is an archive of voices and statements summing up the year 2023 in digital art and culture. It is a document in time on the blockchain bringing together some of the leading voices shaping Web3 and the history of digital art.

THE ARCHIVE 2023

VOICES OF WEB3 | GALLERY

TECHNO TERRAIN: NATURE IN THE AGE OF THE METAVERSE explores the dynamic relationship between nature and the digital realm. The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through a mesmerizing fusion of AI-driven digital art, nostalgia-infused landscapes, and the limitless possibilities of the metaverse.



NATURE IN THE AGE OF THE METAVERSE 

TECHNO TERRAIN | SHOWROOM

QUINTESSENCE by Skye Nicolas unveils 100 digital artworks, reimagining masterpieces as pixel paintings. This transformation reflects an accessible philosophical paradox. The collection, rooted in 1980s nostalgia, embraces technology limitations, exploring appropriation and authorship with common tools.

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SKYE NICOLAS

ART

MAGAZINE

EXHIBITION