Interview 5 // Davonte Bradley

Okay. All right. So today is Thursday, February 11 2021. My name is Colin Goldberg and I'm here today with artist Davonte Bradley, otherwise known as Davo.

Hello, hello.

Glad to be here. Good to, good to have you here. So, you know, I guess we'll get right into it. But first, just a quick intro, you know, Davo was one of the first people to get involved with the Techspressionism project. And it was actually, you know, I put it out there on Instagram, sort of, you know, as, as an idea for people for people to start using the hashtag and had some information up on the site. And Davo was one of the first people to respond and to sort of message me that he really identified with the concept. So he's been, you know, really instrumental in helping Techspressionism grow and acted as the moderator for our salon. So with that, I'm going to introduce Davo. And you know I guess the first question would be for you to tell us a little bit about your background in terms of like where you were born, where you live and practice now and you know any sort of cultural influences that you want to talk about.

All right so I'm gonna actually like try to have to catch myself because I have a tendency to talk a lot now which didn't always used to be the case but that's how it is now but anyway so I was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We I lived there till I was six years old then after my dad left I was parents separated we moved down to Georgia which I was there from 6 to 17 pretty much and then when I went off to college I came back to Virginia pretty kind of close to central Virginia and I met my wife in college and when that all happened I was like you know what I might as well stay because I wasn't really tethered to Georgia all that much I always wanted to come back to Virginia so now I'm living in Richmond Virginia where my little studio is my little dark corner of the house.

Davonte Bradley

And what did you go to school for? I actually was originally in school for I was I was a double major I was a philosophy and computer science double major I dropped the computer science over differences opinion with the head of the department and one of the major professors and we kind of had a falling out I kind of got disillusioned I was like you know what I don't need this I actually wanted to leave that college because it was this college was a it's a small private all-male liberal arts college in the middle of Virginia completely unlike anything I had ever like experienced before and it was also predominantly white so that affluent white kids like it was crazy I remember moving in somebody that they pulled up in a Rolls Royce and their dad pulled up in a Bentley and as I was like helping them unpack and unload I was like oh dear god I hope I don't break anything because that's my life.

What college was it? This is Hamden-Sydney College yeah

It's one of three all-male colleges left in the country one of them is a HBCU back in Georgia called Morehouse and I think there's one in Washington called Wabash I think it's in Washington don't quote me on that I think it's over there but yeah there's only three three all-male colleges mainstream colleges left yeah that's where I went to school studied philosophy did not take a single art course there didn't take a single art course in high school but I did buy my first drawing tablet my first Wacom drawing tablet after I got my first job and started experimenting with digital art then but at that time I wanted to be a character artist or video game concept artist so that's what I was more or less practicing for that's kind of the goal I had in mind even though I wasn't going to school for it I was like this was always in the back of my mind like this is what I wanted to do.

Davonte Bradley

And going to that college was kind of I don't know in a way kind to appease my mom for one and also at the same time escape from home because home life wasn't that great so it was like I'm biding my time here doing this stuff while I try to work on my other stuff but after you know after graduation after I graduated my singular degree in philosophy for a long time I kind of went on hiatus with the with what I was doing art wise kind of got very unmotivated and just I didn't I wasn't feeling it anymore like the hours I was spending I was learning a lot I my technique was going up but the passion had kind of just faded away like I there was a moment I was like I want to create but I don't think I want to create this anymore and so like as a like video games and that kind of stuff was a major part of my life for a very long time and I always thought that's something that I want to get into or something that should be in and then it just kind of fizzled out but it didn't take I had always kind of played around the idea of you know being like a fine art artist always played around with the idea but it was something that I didn't think was viable for me especially considering I had pursued more visual approach and as far as I knew there were no digital artists out there that had kind of made it as a fine artist like none of the galleries online none of the communities online the digital artists that were out there they were commercial artists like they were doing art for video games art for movies and that kind of stuff yeah I didn't think that there was a space for digital fine artists.

Davonte Bradley

Like I didn't think that was the thing, even though that's something that I want to do something that had dabbled in a few times, but not extensively because again, I just didn't think it was worth it. It didn't take till the pandemic where I had all this time on my hands because I lost my job where I was like, you know what? I'm going to throw, I'm going to throw all of myself into this because I don't have anything else going on. I'm at home all the time. I have the computer, I have my tablet.

Davonte Bradley

Why not? Why not just try and make something happen? If not be the first person, be one of the first persons to try and make this happen. And yeah, that's, that's kind of how you found me. When I first started posting on Instagram, some of my first works that started to produce that year. And I remember.

I'm wondering like how, you know, if it was that maybe something, if, if you're showing up when I was searching on a hashtag, I think that's probably what it was, was when I was originally looking for artists, I would search on hashtags like digital art, digital fine art, stuff like that. I think that's probably how I first came across your work, you know, and then, you know, we've been using sort of a hashtag strategy as far as encouraging people to use the hashtag to expressionism to then show up on our, you know, on our searches. To, to, to locate. And that's how the majority of artists have been located, you know, for the, the artist index. But yeah, it's, it's interesting. And then definitely like, you know, I felt like when you. Like, I think I saw your work and then I sent you a message like, Hey, you know, like check out this site and like, you know, we've been using this hashtag to try to put a group together.

Colin Goldberg

And afterwards, after you checked it out, I think you were like, wow. You know, like I totally identify with this idea. Of. You know, using technology. In, in a fine art context to sort of express emotion, you know, and, and that like when, you know, I mean, you were like a total stranger, you know, and somebody like, you know, responding in that way really gave me a lot of confidence to say, you know what, like, this is a, this is sort of like an area of interest for people that it hasn't found. Like, you know, it, it hasn't been answered at this point, you know, and I definitely felt like. Like when I was doing like, you know, when I did my, my MFA in computer art, and this is like back in 2007.

Colin Goldberg

Almost all of the undergraduate students in, in the digital art program. We're interested in industry. You know, there were almost none of them that really, you know, other than for class assignments and stuff like that had any, any sort of interest in pursuing. Yeah. The direction of putting their work in a gallery context or museum context or making work basically for its own sake. I wouldn't say about the context more like why is it made, you know, for personal.

Colin Goldberg

Expressive reasons, you know versus to satisfy like a market need, you know? So like that was pretty cool. You know it was, it was you and then Mark Pechlivanos. Like you got you two guys were like the first two people I remember adding to the index like that first day that I added that was you two were like the first artists outside of the initial sort of group of like me Patrick Steve Oz and Helen that we met met up and sort of started kicking ideas around so that was a real formative moment you know and it's interesting like and I know you mentioned you're a philosophy major like are there any aspects of like your studies there that you feel like have influenced you or influenced your thinking artistically

At all actually yeah quite a bit the thing about studying philosophy is that like it's teaching you how to look at ideas and examine ideas closely and a lot of those techniques and critical thinking skills I've applied to myself introspectively so when I'm thinking about my thoughts my feelings or my experiences I'm kind of using that to inform what ends up on my virtual canvas so to speak because I it took me a minute minute to realize that what was going on though as I was creating because for a while I didn't really think too hard about what my work was about like I knew I was expressing something but I wasn't sure it was always emotion but when I thought a little bit deeper about it's like yeah my work like the bad of my work I will say probably 99.9 percent of my work probably is about emotions and because at the forefront of my mind it was a lot of this work has influenced my trauma because a lot of this work speaks to something that I was going through at the time or me remembering what I was feeling going through that time but it's more about the emotion and like the that slew of black and white abstracts that I did all of those are about fun and enjoyment because that was what I was feeling at the time I was creating them because I had kind of recaptured that feeling from my childhood of working in MS Paint creating artwork through that and so I think it's kind of like that's kind of my journey but it's kind of so it was really fun like I remember telling my wife like after I had done like 20 pieces like back to back like the whole day I was just turning them out and I was like holy crap that was really fun and that was that was not a feeling that I had felt in a long time when I was creating something like it just when I was working on character art or trying to do concept art that feeling just wasn't there it felt like a chore it felt too much like work that I wasn't getting paid for too so that was also the thing like the hours I was pouring into it there was just I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it like it just it felt not necessarily wasted but I was like I feel like I could be using my energy somewhere else and get something more out of this so and if you've seen my work like it's the style itself has developed very rapidly like if you look at some of my first work compared to some of the stuff I'm making now it is literally night and day the styles like what it's about is more or less the same but the style is completely different now

I mean do you feel like that from just the standpoint of technical skills and stuff like that the commercial work or you know you know working towards developing that sort of skill set has enabled you to express yourself you know with more facility as you know in terms of your personal practice yeah

Absolutely I know the term like self-taught artist goes around quite a bit but I don't think that's necessarily accurate not for me anyway like I'm self-taught insofar as I was the one that sought out specific resources specific tools and I was the one that sought out specific resources specific guidelines and learned from those people how to do some of the work I did and a lot of stuff that I learned working on like the concept art stuff and the character design like I might not be using anatomy too much these days but like just the being able to play with lighting lighting and shadows color theory general composition theory all that stuff I've incorporated that into my new work and I've been able to do that for a long time and I've been able to do that for a long time and I've

Been able to do that for a long time and I've been able to do that for a long time and it's a lot more enjoyable yeah I mean I definitely I relate to that too in terms of like you know I mean I spent a lot of time and then I still to some degree do some commercial work but you know when I was getting involved in digital tools like the majority of the work that I learned on was commercial work like commercial design work and some to some degree illustration but mostly online stuff but I've been able to do that for a long time and I've been able to do that for a long time and I've been able to do that for a long time and I've been able to do that for a long time for interactive media and I and again I would say you know I was self-taught in the sense that I would either buy a book or look up tutorials it was definitely nothing that I learned in a classroom setting and in fact as an undergrad my professors for any kind of design classes that I took had no idea how to use any of the software.

Colin Goldberg

And it was the TAs that basically showed us like the rudimentary aspects of like Photoshop and Illustrator and things like that.

So these are layers. This is opacity.

Totally, totally. But then, you know, like once you're doing it for someone else with an end result in mind, then it comes to just drawing something you have the ability to create something now that you know you wouldn't necessarily have had the ability to do before you went through all this sort of other work right and so satisfying or fulfilling you know right so yeah I definitely you know I relate a lot to that to that sort of you know trajectory as well so I mean what was it that made you want to become an artist or like or when did you know that this is what you sort of wanted to do it's

Honestly it's been something that has been with me my entire life just about going all the way back to like early childhood I would draw and you know I had crayon in my hand making well apparently according to my mother and several other people that knew me back then they're like my style was very reminiscent of cubism like even to the point of being similar to Picasso and I was like I don't know who those people are, but I'm making stuff.

Davonte Bradley

But and I even took that into like MS Paint and was doing similar stuff. And MS Paint with, you know, as basic as that is, because that doesn't have layers or anything like that. What you see is what you get. You get colors, you get a paintbrush, pixels. That's it. But I was even creating stuff back then.

Davonte Bradley

Eye-catching and was making people like notice and something happened where, because my brother and my sister, they were into comic books and cartoons and stuff. And naturally, I also became interested in those things, too. And then they started drawing those things. I was like, oh, I'm going to be like them, too. And I'm going to start drawing those things. So I started drawing like X-Men and Sailor Moon. Pokémon and all this stuff and then it didn't stop like I kept on that trajectory even after they stopped like they I don't remember the last time that either of my siblings made anything like that but even after they stopped I didn't so I was still drawing Pokémon I was still drawing these characters from these shows that we enjoyed and I was still drawing these characters from these and that kind of stuff and video games later on and that's where I kind of saw myself going and it took like I was playing with the idea of creating video games which is something I still want to do like I still want to make a video game my life like I want there's specific game that I actually want to remake in my own kind of image that I want to do but that's some point in the future but I thought I really wanted to work in video games like this is where I saw myself being this is where I thought my passion was and I thought that way for a long time like I knew I wanted to do art something in the video game world didn't know what so I kind of was like concept art or character art because I like making characters and!

Davonte Bradley

Then later on after you know years of plugging away at this and not feeling fulfilled or satisfied with what I was learning like I was learning a lot but just in the back of my mind it's like this wasn't this may not be the path for me it's like because it was feeling so much like a chore that I didn't want to do like even learning more things was seemingly like a chore it's like I don't want to learn how to do this anymore but again like the whole idea of me wanting to create art me wanting to create that had been there all throughout that time period all the way through elementary school middle school high school college that idea was still there and again it wasn't until recently that I decided I was like you know what I'm gonna do it I don't I may not know I may not know how to actually paint traditionally, like I don't even actually remember the last time I held an actual paintbrush.

Davonte Bradley

I don't even think I've ever actually, no. Never actually painted on a canvas. I can say that. I've never actually painted on a canvas before. All of my work for the past 15-something odd years, for the most part, has been either digitally or pencil and paper. That's it. Like, no canvas, nothing, no paints, nothing like that.

Davonte Bradley

So, I don't know. It's, and I guess I felt.

What was it that, like, I mean, was there, like, basically a day, like, I mean, you mentioned that you had, like, lost your job. And you didn't seem to really be that bent about it. Like, maybe you didn't like it so much or whatever.

I was a targeted manager.

Did you have, like, you know. A day where you're just like, you know what, like, I'm just going to, like, make some art. Like, or, you know, like, did you, like, was there something that happened that made you, like, you know, like, a decision that you made consciously? Or how did that happen?

There was a point, because video games are still a major part of my life. I was streaming. I was streaming. I think it might have been Monster Hunter or something. One of the games I normally played around that time.

Like on Twitch or something like that?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's kind of actually why I have the setup that I have, like, with the mic and the ring light and all that good stuff. And but there was a point at the end of one of my streams where I was like, you know what? I haven't drawn anything for a while, but I don't know what I want to draw. And so I booted up.

Davonte Bradley

I think at the time. I was using a program called Paint Toolside, which was my go to program for the time. This was before I discovered Krita was a thing that existed. And I fell in love with Krita after that. But I created like I was just moving my stylus across the canvas and like whatever whatever develops is going to develop. I was I didn't have a clear and I didn't have a clear vision in mind for how it was going to turn out. I was just making. Whatever and seeing how it went. And by the end of it or by midway through, I was like, huh, that kind of looks like something. Let me adjust here. Just here. And what I ended up with was this really abstract looking eye at the end of it. And it surprised me. I was like, that actually looks pretty damn amazing.

Davonte Bradley

And I spent literally five minutes like I got more of the light. A positive feeling from that five minutes and the end result of that I had with like the 12 hours I would spend on average sometimes with some of the other work that I did and it was just the moment it was like maybe

I should try that again

And so I kind of had the same strategy I was like I just took my stylist and was just kind of moving I picked a brush start moving it around and see what would happen now it's like

Now you were you said you were streaming this like were you actually getting feedback from people from viewers like while you're doing this or yeah

My friends yeah my friends they're

Like holy

Crap what did you do I was like I don't know it just it just happened like it literally I can't explain it like it just happened like I don't I wasn't really had a conscious there wasn't really a thought process behind I was just making lines and well not even lines in that case it was like a brush that I picked up but and then like the next time like I think it was like about maybe a week or so in between that but I was like you know what maybe I should try this again so I started streaming again and I was like I'll make this an art stream like that's all I'm going to do this time I remember I made something there that it kind of looked like a forest but I wasn't too like thrilled with how it came out like it was it but I wasn't exactly like upset or like it even though it wasn't something that like I was necessarily proud of so to speak I could actually walk away from that piece and like no that's done it's finished I don't have to work anything like I can walk away and there was something about that was kind of liberating I guess it's like even though I wasn't completely satisfied it was still actually a pleasant experience to work on and it's done and that was like a really good experience for me and I think it was something that I had really felt before in the next time that I did it like I started experimenting more started trying to express different things and it just all this experimentation all this like just having fun creating spiraled into what I've created now and what I've been creating now it's actually kind of I guess it was like a natural progression I guess right

And I mean do you have any like specific influences on your work like that were artists that you admired or

So one thing that I made the conscious decision to do when I set out to develop the style that I have now for a long time like when I was working the character art and stuff and conceptions I felt that my work had been influenced too much by other people and I didn't feel like I had a style of my own to speak it's like because I had worked so long using these other people as references it didn't feel like something that was uniquely me and so I made a conscious effort I was like while while I'm working on this while I'm doing this stuff I don't want to necessarily draw too much from other people I don't want to draw too much from other influence not yet anyway

Not

As not in this space where everything is still fun everything is still enjoyable and so I for about maybe three four weeks of just working solely on me what I want to see what I wanted to create without looking at something else because one of the one of the feelings that came about from working on this style was that I didn't want to be a part of it I didn't want to be a part of it I don't want to be a part of it I don't want to be a part of it I don't want to be a part of it I was like this doesn't have to look like anything like I don't have to make this look like something else that already exists I don't have to unless I really want to and because of that's kind of what's it felt really freeing because by the by the end of it when something is done when it's finished it's like it looks like itself it doesn't look like this it doesn't look like that it's just it is what it is it is itself right and of course you know we as a creator you can't necessarily like say you weren't inspired or you weren't influenced by something when you make something because everything that we have like we are kind of innately drawing from whatever references but I can't pinpoint a specific reference or things that I was pulling from and creating what I was creating it's like and I think that's kind of the distinction between like creating my own style versus like being inspired by somebody like Picasso or things like that now the work that you see now that's some of that stuff is definitely influenced by some monarchs because I actually started studying Basquiat a lot I was very I felt very strongly about his story and his life and so I and I noted that in quite a few of his pieces there was writing like legitimate writing text like even something that could be seen as poetry but not necessarily actually poetry in a lot of his work and so I took that idea and some of the symbols like the crown that he liked to use in quite a few of his works I put that in a couple of paintings I was like this is me respecting you and in my work and but a lot there was quite a few works I did that there were my thoughts my feelings kind of like I'm going to coin it now it's like self graffiti because these are these are thoughts and feelings and stuff that I couldn't actually like just push away like these were at the forefront of my mind so it's like this is what's being exposed on the canvas so doesn't necessarily have to be rhyme or reason or any logic behind it but it's kind of like I'm going to coin it now it's like it's kind of like I'm going to coin it now it's like it's kind of like I'm going to coin it now it's like emotion is kind of just irrational that's just how it is right so gotcha

Yeah cool cool right on yeah I mean I know you mentioned Basquiat before and I didn't you know I definitely I see the connection with using words but other than that you know stylistically I don't see you like trying to emulate him in some way you know

What I mean so but and his story was definitely you know something I mean I don't know if I can say it's not exactly the same thing but I think it's kind of I mean I don't

Know if I can say it's not exactly the same thing but I think it's kind of tragic in a lot of ways you know but you know I think that it just sort of speaks to the structure of the art world you know the way it was and you know I feel like the way it is today is almost like an exaggerated version of the way it used to be yeah like a you know almost like a cartoon in a lot of ways for better or worse you know but so anyway you know I guess before we look at your work I want to ask you a question about your work and I think it's kind of your work do you want to share a little bit about your process I know you mentioned Krita that was a software program that I had never even heard of before you brought it up and actually like you know I mean so what year were you born in 92 1992 okay so I was born in 71 so like literally like I could be your dad you know and

Like when

When you know like you talk about streaming and twitch and stuff like that and like that whole culture is definitely like not my culture but it's interesting and it's cool that like artists can actually be almost doing a live performance while they're creating work and people are like tuning in on the internet like that's something that's really sort of you know novel to me to even think about like I knew that was sort of going on in terms of gaming but I think that is a new aspect of art making that sort of is really interesting and also like I know that you I mean you basically introduced me to discord which we're using now as like sort of our main you know chat platform for the expressionist you know community and I think stuff like that I mean you know everybody brings different stuff to the table you know what I mean I think that's what's made this project sort of really interesting and you know it starts to feel more and more and more like this idea of really like social sculpture you know and that's like an idealized version of what I think that expressionism could be you know and at the other pole of like what I definitely do not want it to be would be you know an organization with a trademark and sort of like all of those sorts of things you know like so to me having it have the feel of you know a collaborative sort of ongoing online project like an art project in a sense using social media and social structures in general as a medium to work in I mean you know I think I might have wrote a little bit about this on the site but you know there's an artist Joseph Boyes who came up with this idea of social struct of social sculpture and Joseph Nequital who's one of the you know the artists in our index he introduced me to that concept

Years

Back when we collaborated on something and for some reason it sort of laid dormant for a long time and I never really connected it to what's happening here but then seeing things like you know like you took the initiative of the you know like starting a collab project you know and stuff like that it just I don't know like it makes it into something really interesting where it's stimulating you know like to be involved with so many different artists having different ways of looking at things and you know it also makes it apparent that like everyone's going to have their own definition of whatever Techspressionism is for them you know what I mean and to me that's validity like that's what it should be other people might argue against that it's like it all needs to conform to a certain agenda or look a certain way or whatever else like that but to me technology and expression are like the core components and other than that and you know in context that it's not mass media you know that it's so it's

I don't I don't really mean to interrupt but like there's a there's a point there's a point that you got at that really hits home for me the idea that you know that the movement itself manifests itself differently for everyone. Like there is kind of like this core idea of what it should be, right? But subjectively, everyone has their own like specific interpretation of how that should be or how that looks, right? And what it means to them. Now, why that resonates with me specifically, not just because of my artwork, but that's actually kind of a theme that I've actually kind of been exploring with my artwork as a Black person, which it's, I could go on and on about this point, but the idea is that when people think about what it means to be Black, and specifically African American in this country, there's all sorts of different ideas and stereotypes and all sorts of just stuff out there about how we can be Black.

Davonte Bradley

And I think that's a really important thing to think about. What that means. You ask any Black person that has actually kind of thought about this, they still will not be able to tell you what it actually means to be Black in this country. It's this nebulous thing that it's like, it's really hard to pin down and define.

Davonte Bradley

But on some level, and as weird as it sounds, it's kind of like, I know it when I see it, but not really. And for me, like, because I'm a Black person, I'm not going to be able to tell you what that means. I'm light-skinned. Like, I'm very light-skinned. Darn near white. I have blonde hair. I have blue eyes. I have a lot of physical features and traits that don't necessarily scream Black, but like my facial structure, my eyebrows, my hair texture, those are Black. My nose, my lips, all of that are Black features. But everything that's on top of that isn't necessarily Black.

Davonte Bradley

The way I speak, the way I conduct myself, like my mannerisms, my way of speaking, my way of speaking, my mannerisms, a lot of those don't actually speak Black either, which like growing up, I've been told you might as well be white because I wasn't speaking AAVE. And for those that don't know, that's the formal linguistic way to say African-American vernacular language. What's colloquially known as like Ebonics, when people speak ghetto, that's what they're referring to, AAVE.

Davonte Bradley

It is a, official dialect. Anyway, but I don't use it. I can understand it, but I don't use it. I, whatever dialect of English that I use, it's not, it's not that. And just because, because I didn't necessarily necessarily follow or fit into the boxes of, okay, this is kind of what it means to be a Black person, but there was some overlap into apparently what it means to be a white person.

Davonte Bradley

I did, I kind of fell outside of both boxes, because I was too white to be Black, but also too Black to be white, and it's a weird feeling, and it's a weird experience to... Essentially be ostracized by two communities that one you're, you're technically supposed to be a part of and the other, they might not want anything to do with you anyway.

Davonte Bradley

But I don't know. It's, there's this, there's this weird, there's among, among people like myself, not, not just like people that look like me, light-skinned Black people like me. There's this idea that being Black, what it means to be Black is just different for everyone. The guys or the people that grew up liking non-stereotypically black things, like if they were into anime and they were into video games and they didn't like hip-hop or they didn't like to dress urban, if they didn't like those things they were kind of pushed out or pushed aside because they weren't being black and movement in a way was kind of like, for me, it's almost like that same sort of, same sort of issue where you're, you're there, you want to be seen as a fine artist. You want to be respected. You want to be treated like you're the best artist in the world.

Davonte Bradley

For being a fine artist but for whatever reason like you because you don't neatly fit into those boxes of what it means to be a fine artist or like what it means to be like an industrial commercial artist and like just kind of the ire that some galleries might give or some people even in the art world who kind of look down upon digital artists or people that use technology in their artwork they're like ah that's not real art or whatever that feeling very much reminds me about my particular position in the world in my community and it resonates very strongly

So yeah I mean I definitely relate to your you know the way that you're talking about feeling sort of not a part of you know on either side or either box or whatever you know yeah of mixed ancestry myself and like you know walking into synagogues or temples and people are like are you supposed to be here yeah right like I had that happen at a family reunion I had

That happen to be in a family like it's hard to describe but there's that look that you get where it's like are you sure you're supposed to be here like that's what the look is telling you even though they're not like outwardly voicing this but that's the feeling that you get and you can't ignore it yeah

And you know I mean on my mom's side I mean my mom's of japanese ancestry and you know I mean I haven't really been as exposed to straight up japanese culture like I've never been to japan you know but definitely I think there is part of that too where like you know if you're not fully japanese on both sides of your bloodline you're kind of looked at as like I think there's even like a lot of people who are like I don't know what it is but you know it's kind of like along those same lines and I remember my wife's nephew who's now my nephew when she and I first started talking online we met on an online dating site you know years ago and her her nephew was like oh when are you gonna message that juponese guy you know and now and then I actually like you know it stuck with me and I googled it of course there's already a facebook group that I'm going to go to and I'm like there was already a facebook group called juponese which I thought was really funny but like

You know

I felt like wow that's like something I identify with but

That's the feeling I got when I finally found to expressionism I was like oh wow there's a thing it exists and I feel that I fit into this thing it's like I felt like an outsider on so many fronts and this is the one time I was like wow that speaks to me that like I think I could be a part of this yeah like

I feel like I could be a part of this yeah like I feel like I could be a part of this yeah like wow this is something worth worth you know moving forward with you know and as time has gone on there have been more and more people that like when I first like you know message them over Instagram I mean that's our main sort of platform for like you know just showing each other's work whatever you know interacting with the world or whatever for better or worse you know like I feel like there's been plenty of people that are like you know like I found my tribe or like this is like my these are my people you know what I mean I'm

Like that's

Pretty cool you know like I don't know that's a good feeling it gives me some satisfaction to know that like you know and I've definitely felt the same way that you know dealers and gallerists a lot of them they're not going to really like you know look at work that had anything to do with a computer as valid, you know, as valid as, you know, work that doesn't or didn't. But I mean, you know, really early on for me anyway, like, you know, when I was first studying painting and stuff like that, I sort of had this epiphany, like, you know, like I was basically born right around the same time. As the personal computer you know right when like I mean I grew up with trs 80s in the classroom learning basic their apple twos you know even when I was in elementary school and then had a commodore but pretty much around the same time I was born in 71 that's when like home computers were basically around the time being born and I was thinking you know like it would be really stupid for me as an artist not to make this my life's work because like down the road people are going to look back and be like you know in the late 20th century computers became available to people and like artists always just use whatever tools are around for millennia since since you know start with like rocks rocks were available you know so to me it's like you know what am I really going to say with my paintbrush and my oil paints that's going to be brand new you know compared to like what I can do with this machine where it's like you know half the time I'm like wow look at the way that look at what that did you know right yeah and you know definitely like a lot of what you were saying about your process like that also resonated with me in terms of like you know just making stuff that you want to see and it doesn't necessarily have to be related to anything in particular related to someone else's work but like you know just experimenting with the tools until you know there's something surprising on the screen it's like wow look at how that turned out right so moving along you know you want to share a little bit about your process so or you I mean you could do it actually through the screen share too if you want I Principal actually

Let me open up krita that's the software that I use and I will and

That's krita right correct yeah I actually never heard of that yeah a program before I met you I

Actually did not learn about it until last year but I'd been using I went from Photoshop to a tool called paint tool sai which is what I had used almost exclusively for like six years and then I discovered that there was some limitations with sai that I just wasn't like I needed something more something more robust because it was really basic and allowed me to do the things I want to do at the time but to do more I needed something else and I discovered krita because they build themselves as being like the most important part of the process and I was like oh so if specifically replicating brush strokes and all that stuff. And I was like, yes, I'm going to try that. And one of the first days I used to, I was like, now I know what they mean by there. It's really great at replicating brush strokes because I didn't actually have to do a whole lot of like legwork to modify a brush or create my own in a lot of cases.

Davonte Bradley

Because what they had to start with was already pretty great. Now I've since added and created my own brushes and that kind of stuff too. But I pretty much use what they have as templates and just modify a couple of those to suit my needs. Or suit the effects I'm looking for. And it's been, it's been a wrap since then.

Davonte Bradley

Let me go ahead and pull up Krita. Can you see it?

Yep.

All right. So one of the things that you will see the most out of me, there are two, there are two, two brushes that are brushes, but they're, they're, they're supposed to be like chrome ink pens. If you've worked with a chrome ink pen, like, like they make, oh crap, hold on. At one size, they look one way, but when you make it, imagine like if you took a chrome ink pen and just made it like this big around and just started using something like that, that's kind of what's, what's happening. Cause I'll take, chrome ink pen brush and I'll make it that big, set it to black, I think for this one and kind of makes its own like 3d effects with it. Uh-huh. Depending on how much pressure I apply and whether or not it connects to another line.

Huh.

And then there's this, the other one, which there's even more lines involved. Like this one is a lot more feathery feeling. I'm not sure if he can actually tell the difference, but

Hmm. Or bitmap or like a combination?

Bitmap.

I'll bitmap.

So yeah, so this is how

That works. That's interesting.

I see like the sort of spider web pattern going on inside of there, inside the strokes. Yeah.

And then what I'll do from here, I'll usually create another layer on top of that one, switch to a watercolor kind of brush. And I'll go over that with, I like to use red a lot. So I'm going to go over this with the red. Now, the programming doesn't always catch up as fast. So I have to kind of be patient sometimes as my processor kind of computes. But it turns a lot of that black or almost black to whatever color I'm painting over it.

Davonte Bradley

So that creates that kind of, I don't know, coloring effect. And then from here, actually since I paint on the background layer, I made a mistake. But it's all right. I'll set this to multiply, create another layer behind this one, set that layer, set the same brush to gray, and then paint behind it with the same watercolor brush. And what happens is the residual brush effects from the watercolor that was the color brush, you get to see how that actually is affecting the surrounding canvas as you go over or go behind with gray, because it changes the gray to whatever hue or value that is on top of it. I'm not sure if you can see

It too much.

There it is. Yeah. See, if I go outside, this edge is going to be gray. But if I come back, it's going to Ben Red, because that's where the red is sitting.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. And I think most of your work, other than the work that incorporates letter forms and words, is purely abstract. Right? Right. And it's interesting. I remember being in critiques in school, and other students were saying, so what is your work about? And you usually would say it's about the process, and talking about. And I think that's a really good example of how the work was made. And a lot of times, people, well, that's not enough. That's not good enough. What is it really about? And I think at this point, for me, it's not really for me to say, like when it's abstract work. I mean, the surrealists talked about this idea of automatic drawing. And just watching you make this piece as a demo, makes me think of that.

Colin Goldberg

Because it's just sort of coming out of you. And you're not trying to represent anything necessarily. But that isn't to say that there isn't meaning behind it. Or something isn't driving you to make this particular mark versus any other mark, or this particular color, or drawing it quickly or slowly.

Colin Goldberg

You know what I mean? Yeah. I feel like. You know? Yeah. And people could say, well, what's the difference between automatic drawing and doodling? I mean, to me, the answer would be basically nothing. There are different explanations for the same thing, which is sort of accessing your subconscious to create marks.

Colin Goldberg

And I find that really interesting. And I think with computers, those marks have the capacity to do really surprising things.

They do. Actually, because I'm zoomed in really close now, you can kind of see the difference between each Chrome ink pen. See how that one's a lot like those are a lot smoother looking and a lot more wispy. And the other brush or the other Chrome ink pen looks like that. They're a lot more spread out and distinct.

Did you ever have a program called Studio Artist?

No, I don't think so.

Yeah. I don't know if it's made anymore, but you should check that out. It used to be made by a company called a software company was called Synthetic with a K. And it was really interesting because it was one of the few programs. I think it might have been the only one that I had ever seen that combined vector and bitmap together. So you'd be drawing doing vector marks. So it really wasn't eating up processor time like it was vector based. And but then it would apply like bitmap effects. And you could apply your bitmap effects after afterwards to the to the marks and then re generate like the drawings in different styles and stuff like that. It was pretty cool. And you could even like vectorized video and then apply effects to the vectorized frame by frame animation video. Yeah, it was I mean, it was an older it was probably maybe 10 years ago that I even had that.

Colin Goldberg

That program. I don't think it would even work on my machine right now. But I'd be curious to see because what you were doing, it reminded me of that in some ways.

So anyway, I forgot I forgot to also share. So there's one other thing that I do as far as my process because it doesn't really add anything to it. But well, it doesn't add anything to the process. But it definitely adds to I guess the presentation. Of the artwork. And that's when I decide to use it's a program or a piece of software called V draw.

Davonte Bradley

And what I've done is I've created like a virtual avatar for myself and a virtual studio.

All right. Yeah, you shared some of those on your Instagram I saw. Yeah.

So hold on. Let me actually set that up really quick. Okay. So I've created like a virtual avatar for myself and a virtual studio. Okay. So here we go. All right. So here we go. And then throw this actually not I will share my screen again. And this time I'm going to put it on actually I'll just put it back over there. I'll move the draw over.

Davonte Bradley

And yeah, okay. So this software. Pretty much anything that I do on my on my canvas is actually going to be what's kind of hard to do at the same time because I will actually have to pull up.

I'll switch screens and that should probably do it.

Having technical difficulties. I'm having technical difficulties. So I'll just try to get through this. Hmm. That's weird. Oh, oh okay there it is. All right. Okay, now now so my primary stuff so it's going to be mirroring everything I'm doing in credit. But everything that I'm doing. In credit. You can see it over here. That my virtual avatar is doing. So all the marks that I make. You can see them in real time, as though I'm actually painting.

Everything.

Yeah, it's pretty cool like it definitely ties in your interest I think an anime and character art, you know, and shows the, the process in an interesting way. Yeah, I've definitely never seen anything. Like that in terms of, you know, watching the process with an avatar like that. Yeah. What did you use to create the avatar and there

Is what's the name of that software, it's all. Both of them are Japanese. Funnily enough, I cannot actually remember the name of the software that actually used to create the avatar off the top of my head. But the software that the avatars in is called V draw which is built using the unity platform which is the platform we normally use to create video games. Gotcha. So the.

But, what I'll do favorite anime artists or enemy, you know like titles.

Oh, quite a few, because I've been I've been I've been. I've been actually into anime so. I've been into anime since the age of like, I want to say, five, and my first anime was not for kids, not at all. It was an anime called vampire hunter D. And it was during the heyday of like the very gory 80s animation styles of things like this to the North Star and whatnot came out during that time period.

Davonte Bradley

But yeah, I saw that five years old.

Yeah, I mean I always, you know, I mean, probably, you know, I definitely got into it with comic books first.

Yeah.

Stuff like Akira.

That's one of my favorites.

Ghost in the Shell. Yeah. Katsuhiro otomo yeah I mean amazing amazing work and then ghost in the shell the first time I saw the original one not the live action one yeah

I

Mean my mind was just completely blown and

The and the interesting thing about that art form is that like that was a like that is a piece of art in and of itself on its own like that and akira for their time they were they were their masterpieces like I and I appreciate them for that there's other anime out there that are just like therefore I mean they are what they are they're made to cater to teens and whatnot and you know it's got a lot of action sequences and whatnot but I wasn't old enough to appreciate ghost in the shell when I was younger because a lot of the concept stuff just went over my head studying philosophy and everything now I'm like oh

My gosh this is this is incredible so it's

It's one of those things where it's like as I've matured as a person and my intellect and like as an artist I have so much more appreciation for the stuff that kind of got me into wanting to do art too like even though I did do a lot of fan art and character art and stuff like that was inspired by this stuff for a long time like I'm not gonna say that it was bad it's just that's where my interest lied at the time

But it's funny funny how things change and develop yeah no absolutely absolutely and how you know like I mean anime and manga and stuff like that slowly crept into mainstream western culture you know now with ghost in the shell being remade as like a major cinematic release and you know and this is something that was like fringe you know years ago or at least like for westerners you know pretty fringe you know

You can even get most anime and like you couldn't go to the store and get it like there was there's like one or two businesses that actually sold anime to the and manga for that matter places like sun coast which I don't even think sun coast exists anymore but there was only like a handful of shops and they were like really small shops they're sporadically found with bad subtitles and all sorts of stuff because this is before they were dubbed and all like but yeah I remember those days right

On well do you want to show I guess I mean do you want to show some more of your work as far as how your work has sort of evolved a little bit you know I don't know if you want to pull up anything off of your site

Yeah I actually yeah I actually have a tab open with I made a new grouping on my website just for the occasion to kind of showcase just how things have changed with my art style gotcha

Do you want to just let the audience know your url so people can look you up yes

So you can find all of my artwork or majority of it now because I haven't uploaded some of it yet but the majority of my artwork is at www.davobradleyart.net my Instagram is also davobradleyart my facebook is davobradleyart my twitter which I made before is just b davante so it's the letter b and then d-a-v-o-n-t-e but this is kind of a rough snapshot of just how much my style has changed and progressed or in a short period of time this is if it lets opens up this piece is entitled depression which after losing my job and or anything like that like I was kind of feeling very lost please look there we go so there's I was still in the mode of trying to reproduce some of the work that I made as a child in ms paint and what I did with ms paint was there was a lot of works that I made that were there were literally pitch black backgrounds and geometric shapes on top so that was kind of the effect that I was going for with this red is being more associated with like also anger but also sadness at the same time so I was going for with that and some painterly strokes then there was the next one which came a few weeks later called tied down which was inspired from at the time I was it was a very tumultuous time with my mom the year prior I'd actually dealt with my mom being suicidal and also extremely like paranoid and I was on the phone with her constantly like trying to bring her back to like sanity and like the I kind of have a not necessarily strained but my family family does at times feel like it's like the status of my family has changed to me in a lot of ways and so the kind of struggle from that manifested in this that's

Definitely do you produce these I guess this site allows people to have these produced it in various sizes and substrates. Yep. And then some of your work you release as singular pieces as well right. Yes.

Yes. This one is. I use the mirroring mirroring technique, and this is actually the same brushes I demonstrate before the chroma ink pens but smaller, like what they were before to create this effect. And this one. I wasn't really. I don't think there was too much of any emotion behind this one. This was just one of the things that I was trying to do. I just wanted to make something that looks cool.

Davonte Bradley

And I have like in front of my right behind my main monitor here. I have comic books of carnage and venom, which are kind of two of my favorites sets of villain antihero sets in the Marvel Universe. So I kind of incorporated that those red wispy lines that's kind of from carnage's design. Because he's read all over and got tentacles and whatnot everything. That's kind of where that came from. And also kind of where the title came from called utter chaos, because he's that characters chaotic is all hell.

Davonte Bradley

And there's this one. You also notice like some of the titles for these might not make a whole lot of sense. And that's it. They make sense to me. This one I was listening to a song where one of the lyrics was, was that the person failed the test. And I think I had that song on repeat while I was making this one.

Davonte Bradley

But that's where the title came from and I was experimenting with another brush to see how that would work. This is before I had settled on the, the chroma and pen as my primary. Tool.

Gotcha. So when you create work, do you like set the canvas size to start so that's like the biggest that you can produce the work at like a certain resolution or how do you go about that from sort of like a technical standpoint.

I'm from a technical sense, like, I had the time of creating a lot of these at the start, I didn't necessarily have the intention of making them as press. I had the intention of making them as prints. At the time. What happened was, there was, there was interest that was shown for me to produce these as prints, and I already been kind of playing with the idea anyway.

Davonte Bradley

So, the initial dimensions that a lot of these older works were. They were at kind of awkward aspect ratios they were consistent but they were kind of awkward aspect ratios. And I kind of had to go back on quite a few of them and adjust. Their aspect ratio goes after the back. And I've had a lot of them were a lot smaller than I thought they were going to end up as.

Davonte Bradley

So I had to make them bigger. But in the process of making them bigger I didn't actually lose a whole lot of visual fidelity, and that process. And if even if I did I don't think I would have been all that like upset about fidelity. It means. I mean it's abstract work like if there's going to be like little artifacts and stuff in it. I think that I think that'd be fine it'd be like an unintentional effect.

But it's not going to like, I know programmers say it's not a, it's not a bug it's a feature. Right.

So I was I was completely okay with that like if things got stretched too big and things started to look a little fuzzy. That's fine. It's okay. This work is this one in particular. I have a little bit to say about this one. So this one is actually the second iteration of a work from the first series that I did entitled the family series. Family series was about essentially what my observations were about the emotional states of my immediate family members throughout the entire period of me growing up. So there was a piece entitled. The father's anger father's rage. The mother's anguish the brothers frustration, the, the sisters. The sisters madness.

Davonte Bradley

And then, after all of those, there was a piece called generational trauma. Where. Yeah, how best to describe. This central figure here is more or less supposed to be interpreted as like a family tree. And all this red all this like almost looking like blood that's coming off of it is supposed to be representational of, like, just the fact that the tree is hurt. Like there's a lot of pain in that tree and it gets passed down as far as all the way down to the roots. Like you can't, but it's also the case that there's still liveliness there that's the blue and the greens here.

Davonte Bradley

Like despite all that pain there's still there's still life there's still something there. There's still something good that's happening.

Despite all the chaotic nature of, I mean, did you preconceived these ideas and then draw it or was this just kind of like coming out of you and then as you're making it you're realizing like, oh, like that's kind of like what that is or.

This one, this one was preconceived. This is one of the few that was actually preconceived. Most of them aren't. Most of them are just me. Having like a big idea of. What I think might be. How do I describe it. I can use this one. Some of them are like this one where I knew what I kind of wanted to depict as in. There's a central idea of hope. Right. And in my mind. I envisioned hope as something that's like.

Davonte Bradley

Spherical the circle because completeness and that kind of idea. And I was like, well, what colors are kind of a so with hope. Maybe blue, maybe purple, maybe. And then that's kind of where, like this, but these fuzzy ideas of how I kind of envision these ideas. And kind of trying to make that visual.

Davonte Bradley

So that's how that's how a lot of my work happens.

Nice. Nice. And, you know, in terms of what you're working on now. I know. I think I saw that you put up an NFT recently. Right. Yeah. Unrearable.

Yes.

You want to, you want to show it, pull that up and just speak a little bit about like what that what that's all about.

Yes, actually. Hold on.

It's all it's on the it's on the site too. Right. Unrearable.

It's yeah, it's unrearable. It's not on my actual like my actual website, but it is all rare.

Yeah, I think I saw it on there because I saw. Maybe you shared on discord that you'd got verified. Then I went and checked your profile and I saw it on there.

I was like, yeah. Yeah. So this was. I noticed that on the platform that some of the things that I was doing. The Anastasia like I'm

Not going to get into that.

So I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I'm like, this is this is on the site. So I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do?

Davonte Bradley

And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? And you know, I just kind of said, what's it do? Through, I actually, this is a font I created. I actually created my own font, yeah. I've started using that. And then this figure here is kind of, it's kind of like my mark of, I guess, it's almost like a signature for me now. I started using it a while ago.

Davonte Bradley

And the first time I used it, I was like, oh, that's just like a nice little effect that I added onto one of my works. But now it's become something more. And I kind of see it now as like my own personal, like eye of truth and like kind of similar to like the Egyptian wajah, kind of. And that's like one of the main things about me as a person is that I'm always kind of watching, always observing. Always making a note of everything that's around me.

Davonte Bradley

And this, the structure here is kind of the embodiment of that at this point for me. So I've started and included in a lot more of my work. So that also as a way to say like, you might be looking at this, but I'm also looking at you.

Gotcha. Could you tell us how we would find you on Rarible?

On Rarible, I think I should be under, should be under, under Davo Bradley Art there too, I think. I think that's how it said. Ah, no, hold on. Yes. Yeah, so under Rarible, I am under Davo Bradley Art. It's shortened to Davo Brad for whatever reason. Okay, that's weird. But yeah. Yeah, if you look the link here, it's app.rarible.com slash Davo Bradley Art.

Davonte Bradley

I don't have too much on here because it's just, I didn't realize that the cost associated with actually minting work.

So if you're going-

Yeah, Ethereum definitely in the last couple of weeks has really risen. And I think that those gas prices, quote unquote, or what it costs to mint things have really jumped as a result as well. You know, I know I was talking to Anne Spalter about that recently, and she's on a bunch of these different, you know, NFT platforms.

Colin Goldberg

She mentioned one called Viv3 that I guess is a little less expensive to make things on. I think they use a different cryptocurrency, like it's based on Ethereum, but it's called Flow. I think a lot of these different platforms use sort of their own, you know, like homegrown sort of cryptocurrency that is like, you know, you start with Ethereum and then convert it to, like I guess Rarible uses RARI,

Which is like- Yeah, they have their own tokens. Yeah.

Right. So it's definitely a whole new world to get into, you know, and pretty interesting. And then just to sort of wrap it up, like what are your thoughts, you know, in general, on sort of like the future of art? Where do you see, you know, art in general going, you know, as we move ahead?

No, I think that for one, the museum and gallery space and just the, the gatekeeping that has been associated with digital art, that's going to go away. That's just, it's, they're going to figure out, or they're going to be forced to figure out in some cases, how to accommodate and show digital art, digital fine art.

Davonte Bradley

Like, I think there are some places that are already trying to adapt where they're like installing projectors and they have VR headsets and that kind of stuff. I think that's going to become more the norm, instead of, you know, instead of just one museum here, one gallery here has these things. That's going to become a lot more normalized.

Davonte Bradley

As VR technology advances too, I think, you know, naturally because digital art itself has advanced a great deal, but as VR technology advances, that's also going to open up a lot more, a lot more space for, you know, consuming, appreciating, and even buying, buying art because with the VR technology, you, it is quite possible now to, you can operate a business virtually in a VR space. Like that is, that is the thing that you can do now. So you could essentially, you could have a virtual digital art gallery that people can visit and buy art from. That is something that can happen.

And you can add it to your digital art. Yeah. There are a few virtual spaces now. Like I know there's this museum of crypto art, that I think is actually something that you can experience in VR and move around in. And there's a few other ones too, that are sort of virtual art spaces, which I think is really interesting, you know, and, and, and the whole NFT phenomenon to me, it's, it's really, you know, an entire new market and it's an entire new set of artists that are much more closely related to street art in ultra space.

Colin Goldberg

And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing

That is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that

Is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. And I think that is the thing that is really important. You know, monetization and commerce are what create art history in a lot of ways. It's like, what makes things, you know, end up in art history books? It's that they're commodified, they're passed down from collector to institution, you know what I mean? And that aspect of things, whether people like it or not, and I know like when I was younger as an artist, I was like, well, that's BS. It's all about, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right. That's just the way it is, you know? So it's interesting, though, to see like stuff like crypto art, it allows artists to empower themselves in a way that is outside of the traditional system.

And the other interesting thing, too, to note is that, like, just like in the, like, traditional art world, where, you know, works will eventually over time, they will accumulate value if they are perceived as valuable as their passing hands, whatever, like something that sold for $3,000 could later end up selling for a million. That's that is a thing that has happened multiple times.

And especially when it's in it's a public, you know, like public transaction, like an

Auction

Where, you know, it's like, I remember there was an artist, I did a bunch of work years ago with this. He was like, kind of made his claim to fame in the 70s as like one of the seminal sort of video artists and made all these crazy Zen videos of like, you know, with like VHS and beta, maybe

Before

That, you know, taking these like hours long videos of like a running stream and stuff. And he actually like introduced me to like William Gibson and cyberpunk literature, like Neuromancer and stuff. But one thing that he said to me, and it always sticks with me about the art world or the art industry or whatever you want to call it, is he said, you know, consensus is king. Yeah. And, you know, I'll never forget that, because it's like if enough people just have this same perception about whatever it is, that's truth. You know what I mean? And like, look at today's media and the way that, you know, manifesting itself in that in that way, you know.

Colin Goldberg

So. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, it's interesting, and I think that you're right, you know, it's things are moving in a direction where the art world and in the art industry in general is catching up to the rest of our culture where technology is a given. You know, people are just. Oh, wow. Like virtual art. It's like, well, gamers have been using headsets for a pretty long time now. Right. You know, and same thing with things like streaming, like Twitch and whatever else, you know, it's like mass culture precedes, you know, fine art, because like fine art is like the individual's personal experience then manifested back out as objects or. Right. You know, but it's really what. What are they taking in? It's like our culture, you know, like moving through time in our culture, which is a technology based culture, you know.

Colin Goldberg

But definitely like, you know, I feel like working and interacting with people like yourself that are like, you know, a younger generation. It's like, oh, like, this is what, you know, this is what people are doing now, you know, like they're streaming art experiences on Twitch. Like, I'm like, wow. It's pretty.

It's also it's like it's also weird and interesting at the same time, because like as far as I'm concerned. I'm not even like at the cutting edge stuff like I'm actually pretty low, like as far as adapting to like recent changes in that space. I'm really far behind. Like I'm at this end. There's other people that are like way out there and what they're doing and what they're working on. I'm just like.

Davonte Bradley

How? It's like, you know, it's like a big part of like the whole thing. Because it's I don't know, but because things move so rapidly and so fast, like because I mean, I was born in the 90s, grew up in 2000, the age of the Internet. Like I was one of the first generations that grew up with the Internet.

Davonte Bradley

And just to see how rapidly communication is changing, art is changing, technology within that little cosmos is changing. And it's like, I there's people that have made whole art experiences with platforms like Unity and Unreal, which were made for video games. But now they're making art out of it. But the art is also almost like a game.

Davonte Bradley

That's also interesting. It's in me. I'm here. What I'm doing, I think, is pretty basic. Like personally speaking, I think what I'm doing is basic because what I'm doing or what I'm trying to do. Is all I like, I'm just trying to make art that. It's you, you, you'd have to wonder whether or not that was painted in reality or somebody took a snapshot of that, like a really high quality snapshot of a painting. Like that's kind of the effect that I'm looking for. Like I want.

Davonte Bradley

And I've actually had that effect so many times. It's like, did you did you paint this? I was like, no, just this was on my computer. Like this is something that I created on my. Computer. Like, really? And I'm, I'm, I'm full with that. I'm fine with that. But then there's other people who are just taking a step further. It's like, they're really pushing the envelope of what the technology is capable of and what kinds of things you can accomplish.

Davonte Bradley

And that's a whole other world that it's not, it's not inaccessible, but the learning curve is steep. It's really steep. And. I respect the people that are hopping into that foray, like with both feet and just like they're just creating stuff. And it's, it's still very much in its early form for what it is, but like they're doing amazing stuff.

Davonte Bradley

Very amazing stuff. Way more, way more technically minded than what I'm currently making. But I respect it and I hope it, I hope it becomes something even greater than what they think it is. I think it's probably going to be. Like, I just. I can't wait to see what. Computer based art or art that's solely on the computer or solely created in a virtual space. I'm very, very much looking forward to how that looks in Italy, like even 10 years from now. Like when I, when I'm pushing 40. 40. 40. I want to, I want to know what that looks like.

I'm definitely going to be around.

I mean, I recently had, you know, had my first experience with like VR with, with an Oculus, you know, headset. And I mean, it, it definitely blew my mind, you know, and it's interesting to see that content is being created both by major studios, like, you know, the whole Star Wars franchise. There's all these VR games and stuff. I'm a Star Wars fan. I'm a Star Wars fanatic. So that was one of the first things I got was like, you know, one of the Vader games. And the lightsaber all this stuff. But then on the flip side, there's content that's being created by individual artists. That's also available.

Colin Goldberg

As VR experiences, you know, and I think that's, that's pretty cool. And that's interesting. You know, I mean, there's definitely a smaller base of consumers of that sort of content than say your standard sort of visual art. But just the fact that people are working in that way, I think people are discovering things, you know.

And one of the, one of the things that I'm very much interested in, and the potential implications of because I always think about implications of things. One, there is currently a project that's going on now, where these developers are actually trying to create VR. And they're trying to create VR with tacitile experiences within VR spaces. So, like, you will actually be able to feel things on your hands and on your fingers as you're interacting stuff in a virtual space I'm just like, that's going to be interesting.

Yeah, that's interesting that's really wild. Yeah. I mean just the other day I was looking through some, some, something on YouTube and I saw like another suggested video. Come up about. Yeah. Like a VR controller that basically, you can like clip it onto the back of a baseball cap or onto the back of a VR headset strap where it like actually reads your brain waves, and like the guy was demoing this, I mean, and it, I mean I believe, I don't know if it's out now and I forget the name of the product. It was like neural link or something like that, where he was literally like controlling things on the screen. By focusing on it and there weren't like external eye tracker mechanisms you know like it was connected to the back of his head and I was just like man this is crazy this is really crazy you know but 21st century you know we're

We're gonna be definitely in for some wild times that's for sure.

Right on, right on. Well, do you have anything you want to add to sort of wrap things up? Or it's been a great interview. It's been a long interview, it looks like. Yeah, it has. I went over the fake allotted amount of time, but. Anyone stuck with us the whole time thank you yeah I appreciate it

Me running running my mouth off as I am want to do these days

Well it was cool it was a little bit more like a conversation than the past interviews so it's good stuff you know and yeah appreciate you know your involvement in the project and definitely look forward to seeing some more of your work and maybe swapping some with you in the near future oh

Yeah and

And the collab project that's you know coming along that's gonna be cool you know that'll be our first real group show you know within vr so I'm excited to see how that all comes together on kunst matrix so yeah all

Right all right well thank you Davo I appreciate your time thank you appreciate the interview all

Right all right signing off