Curated by Matt Gondek

TIDES

Deconstructive Pop Artist Matt Gondek curates a group NFT exhibition with some of the biggest names in the contemporary art world. “TIDES” features seven contemporary artists - some releasing their first NFT, and one artist chosen by the Nifty Gateway Discord community.

Featuring

Brent Estabrook

https://instagram.com/brentestabrook

Best known for his large-scale oil paintings of stuffed animals, Estabrook approaches his work with a delightful playfulness while maintaining a sedulous painterly technique. His personal ritual of mixing and applying paint is honed to a surgical precision, a method informed by his doctorate education. Laying down each thick, richly pigmented brushstroke with attentive patience, Estabrook builds up a rich impasto that evokes the fibers of plush fabric, velvet, and fleece. The artist harmonizes this pristine and sophisticated painting process with the unfettered joy and curiosity exemplary of child’s play.

A paramount component of Estabrook’s overarching approach to artmaking is a mindful presence at each second of painting. He emphasizes “not what is painted, BUT how it’s painted,” and his best work happens when the “how” is answered by a practiced awareness that keeps him in the moment, connected with each brush bristle and every mark put on canvas. It’s a creed informed equally by meditation techniques and the pure immersion and commitment to his life's pursuit of subject and content progresses, so does his exercise in total assimilation with his work.

Estabrook's work has been featured at Christie's auction house (Trespassing, August 2020) and is in the private collections of significant families and collectors around the world. His first solo museum exhibition will be held in September 2022. This is his first NFT release.

Fidia

https://instagram.com/fidia

Fidia is an Italian Artist, living and working in Los Angeles, CA.

His journey into art began in his early childhood, raised in Italy by an inspiring and creative family. After graduating from Accademia di Belle Arti in Italy in 2001, Fidia achieves many important successes in the design industry, as an art director and graphic designer for many fashion brands; during the same years, he has been very active in the European Graffiti scene. Just in 2007, Fidia decides to overturn his career and move into Contemporary Art, which he found to be the ideal way to express and portray the crazy world he was living in, transforming iconic themes into some ironic and conceptual artworks. Fidia art, (made mostly of Sculptures and installations) became either an interesting Social commentary as well as an aesthetical pleasure for the viewers.

Over a few very successful years, Fidia exhibited his work in museums, art fairs and galleries around the world, highlighted by international awards, newspaper and magazine publications, with a solid presence in important worldwide collections.

Max Sansing

https://instagram.com/maxsansing

Max Sansing is a Chicago-based fine artist and one of the city’s most prolific and talented muralists. His distinct aesthetic fuses the color-drenched dynamism of street art with the technical elegance of photorealism. Born and raised on the South Side by two artistic parents, Sansing discovered his passion and creative gift at an early age. During his youth he was involved with several graffiti crews and taught himself oil painting before completing formal training at the American Academy of Art. In addition to his studio practice, Sansing is frequently commissioned to create large-scale murals and experiential installations across the country. He is deeply committed to supporting his Chicago community and is involved with numerous youth programs that expand arts opportunities in underserved areas. His work has been featured in gallery shows and special events in Chicago, New York, and Miami among others.

Joseph Lee

https://instagram.com/joeyunlee

Joseph Lee is an actor and self-taught artist who studies faces and the emotions that inhabit them. Lee focuses on the parallel between external reality and the internal process by manipulating everyday faces and objects through segmented brush strokes, color choice, and volume, converging them into a complete and balanced whole.

Lee’s work continues to be exhibited globally. His past collaborations include Hypebeast, NIKE, Simon & Schuster, Hyundai, & Sony Music.

Mikael B

https://instagram.com/mikaelbrandrup

Born in 1984 in Denmark and now based in Los Angeles, Mikael B is an urban contemporary artist whose work focuses on transforming experience into abstract design. Influenced by his early years as a graffiti artist where he painted under the moniker ‘KETS’, Mikael B uses a mixture of spray and acrylic paint to create his dynamic conceptual works. Finding fame through the power that is social media, Mikael’s unmistakable style has been sought after by some of the world’s most renowned businesses collaborating with American Express, Bentley, LinkedIn, Google, Nike and most recently the coveted Topps Project 70. With a deep personal commitment to philanthropy, Mikael B is an ambassador for the Red Cross Denmark and The Perfect World Foundation. He had numerous sold-out solo shows all over the world, the most recent one was at Maddox Gallery, Los Angeles.

Stickymonger

https://instagram.com/stickymonger

Stickymonger is a New York-based artist whose giant murals transform ordinary spaces into eerie, dreamlike, parallel universes. Looking into the large eyes of her animation-inspired subjects, the viewer is invited to explore the interplay of darkness and light, as well as the tension between innocence and fear, femininity and anxiety.

The artist’s early murals were created using hundreds of vinyl stickers, meticulously put together, piece by piece. The method served to create a sense that each image was melting and flowing together, like a river of ink down a gallery’s walls. This dark fluidity at the center of Stickymonger’s work was inspired by her youth in South Korea, where — growing up in a home next to her family’s gas station — the artist’s imaginative universe was formed while playing in the shadow of oil drums and staring into the reflections of dense black petroleum puddles.

Currently, Stickymonger has expanded her work beyond vinyl to include other mediums such as spray paint and acrylic. As her methods evolve and change, she continues to offer the viewer a portal into a surreal shadow-world of contradictions: as inviting as it is ominous, both delightful and disconcerting.

shelby and sandy

https://instagram.com/shelbyandsandy

shelby and sandy are brothers from Los Angeles.

They have painted and created together their whole lives - and have worked together professionally since 2014. They have partnered with major companies such as: Warner Brothers, Disney, Louis Vuitton, MOCA, AT&T and Nike.

Some of their notable collectors include: Mariah Carey, Rachel Zoe, Zac Efron, Drake, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Chief Keef, Vanessa Hudgens, Bradley Cooper, and Margot Robbie. They have been published in: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Insider, Vice, Hypebeast, and Architectural Digest. They have had solo exhibitions in America, Korea, and Hong Kong. Their colorful artwork reflects happy nostalgia.

shelby and sandy are nice.

Noealz

https://instagram.com/noealzii

Seoul-based photographer, Noe Alonzo, has been doing photography since childhood. He specializes in rainy night photography, often shooting from sunset until sunrise.

His journey started with disposable film cameras, he learned the fundamentals with landscapes and timelapse, and he transitioned into street photography with movies such as Bladerunner and Akira as his inspiration.

Lately, he has been learning to animate his photography, allowing for a more immersive experience. Noealz is passionate about creating art and beauty out of everyday scenes and sharing them with the world. He likes to take photographs that are indistinguishable from paintings.

Featured by Seoul Museum of Art, National Geographic, BBC Storyworks, Samsung, OnePlus.