Transcript
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of Scrapbook, the podcast dedicated to all things digital art.
Speaker: I'm your host, Miquel Colonna, and today I'm super excited to welcome Australian digital artist, Lily Ilo.
Speaker: Lily, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: I'm so grateful to be here.
Speaker: It's lovely to meet you as well and see you on the screen, hear your voice.
Speaker: It's lovely.
Speaker: Likewise, I'm really looking forward to our talk, Lily, and really understanding more about your approach to art making.
Speaker: I've come across your work in the last, I would say, two, three months, started collecting it around the same time.
Speaker: And so this is a great opportunity to learn more about one of my favorite artists.
Speaker: And you are calling in from Australia, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it's the morning time here and my kids are just heading off to school.
Speaker: My son goes to early school maths, so he's off already.
Speaker: And my daughter has a swimming carnival day.
Speaker: Are you in a rural setting or you're in the city?
Speaker: So it's suburban.
Speaker: Canberra, it's a city, but it's not a city that you would know.
Speaker: It's pretty rural.
Speaker: It's the capital of Australia.
Speaker: So would you compare it to DC size-wise?
Speaker: No, it's like 400,000 people.
Speaker: Wherever we drive, we see kangaroos and countryside.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We have kangaroos in our front yard in the summertime.
Speaker: They come down, they need more water.
Speaker: It gets quite dry.
Speaker: So they come looking for juicy grass and things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Are they aggressive or are they friendly?
Speaker: The males can be quite muscly and pretty aggressive.
Speaker: And they also just don't have any sense, like crossing the road at nighttime.
Speaker: You have to be really careful if you're driving because they just come out of nowhere.
Speaker: so just like deer yeah like deers i guess yeah and do they pose a threat as far as aggressiveness or no no i mean i think that the worst might be like if your dog was gonna chase one they would be quite aggressive to the dog but um just passing them generally they just don't bother you too much they might stand up and
Speaker: sort of defend themselves.
Speaker: I feel a bit more proud.
Speaker: Take a stand, right?
Speaker: Kind of.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, they do.
Speaker: And they look at you and it's a bit scary, but they're not going to attack.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, through TikTok and YouTube, there's a lot of videos out there.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: The kangaroos, you know, taking that aggressive stand, right, right.
Speaker: I don't know if it's like, you know, more like grandstanding than it actually is.
Speaker: Yeah, I think more so.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Okay, so let's turn our attention to art.
Speaker: I want to start with your training, right?
Speaker: So you come from a classical training type of formation as an artist, right?
Speaker: MFA, residencies, exhibits, gallery direction.
Speaker: How do you reconcile that aspect of your life with, you know, what I call the New Dawn ethos of Web3?
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: That's a great question because it's something that I've wrestled with in my life for sure.
Speaker: Like that kind of formal training was something that I went straight into.
Speaker: And I feel like initially as a child, I was around art.
Speaker: My dad was an architect and he painted at home in with oils.
Speaker: And from a very young age, I was introduced to painting at an easel and we would paint
Speaker: on the weekends and he would, you know, teach us how to mix paints with turps and, you know, figure out landscape, you know, compositions and things that we could do.
Speaker: And then, you know, from a young age, I really wanted to be an artist.
Speaker: It's just all I wanted to do.
Speaker: Either that or be a farmer, but like some kind of idyllic, sustainable farmer with like one cow and a few chickens.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Or maybe both.
Speaker: I could marry both.
Speaker: Maybe both.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely both.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I was always trying to get better at the craft of drawing and painting.
Speaker: So I badgered my parents to go and study life drawing.
Speaker: When I was like 13, I was... Oh, wow, wow.
Speaker: So the calling came that early on in life.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, always.
Speaker: It's always been something I've done, like just drawing and painting.
Speaker: My dad, yeah, he's a huge influence in my life.
Speaker: And as an artist, I think he was happy to see his children creative like that.
Speaker: And he would really, you know, he was influential in kind of teaching us in like an informal way of like understanding perspective or, you know, when I remember like early memories, five or six years of age, drawing a table,
Speaker: and showing it to my dad.
Speaker: And he was like, well, a table has four legs.
Speaker: This has two legs.
Speaker: Where are the other two legs?
Speaker: And I remember like always wanting to impress him and wanting to kind of understand and learn those skills.
Speaker: So I would then try and understand and observe more keenly
Speaker: what I was drawing, I suppose.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it wasn't courage, right?
Speaker: From, from both your parents, from both the parents, right?
Speaker: The, the art making, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My mom was like not, um, she wasn't, I don't think I've got one drawing from my mom.
Speaker: So she didn't really do art in that sense, but she sewed and she taught me how to sew.
Speaker: And we've
Speaker: patchworked and knitted and crocheted and things, very old school skills, grandma skills.
Speaker: But yeah, we would do that instead with my mom.
Speaker: And yeah, so I think I grew up around a lot of that crafts making, woodwork.
Speaker: My dad was a carpenter as well.
Speaker: So we always had that around in the house.
Speaker: Yeah, so, but from a really young age, really wanting to do, to get better at drawing and painting.
Speaker: So, yeah, I did like live drawing from 13 to about 19 and then went like straight into uni.
Speaker: But actually like from high school to uni, I was feeling like I needed to ground myself in art history and like understand if I were to be an artist in any capacity in the world, I really wanted to understand where I was.
Speaker: like the history of art and art history more strongly so that I could understand where I position myself or something, I think.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I did a Bachelor of Art History Theory and then did a Master's of Curatorial Studies, tacked on to the end of that
Speaker: that more theoretical study.
Speaker: And then following that, I was finally ready to go back to making.
Speaker: So I started exhibiting and then applied to do my MFA in majoring in drawing.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: That's fascinating.
Speaker: So you pursued an MFA in, was it drawing?
Speaker: Was it in- Yeah, drawing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you also did one in curatorial services, right?
Speaker: Which you mean, so that would sort of add almost like a, it's almost like a warranty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think doing my art theory degree and learning so much about the history of art really compelled me to want to curate shows and work in that space.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And yeah, like you say, a kind of warranty.
Speaker: I come from a family where
Speaker: My sister is a medical doctor and my brother is in works, you know, in Blackrock and he's, you know, very.
Speaker: And so I kind of was like, well, I have to find how I can make a career in the arts and
Speaker: you know, survive.
Speaker: So I suppose I was looking at it from that perspective that I could work within the arts as well.
Speaker: Yeah, I can work in a museum or in a gallery.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I did curate some shows and was the director of an artist-run space in Sydney for a few years.
Speaker: And then at the end of my master's, I had a residency in Paris where my partner, who is now my husband, came along.
Speaker: And we got so creative, we made a baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, so I came back and, um, finished my master's hung my show with like an eight month or eight week old baby on my hip and, uh, finished the master's thesis and things before she was born.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I then, yeah, I was flung into being a mum.
Speaker: And I've got to say that really punctuated my art career to a big extent.
Speaker: And I think there was, it was not just being, you know, unable to output work and have the time for art.
Speaker: but I finished up at my studio of my masters.
Speaker: I've closed up the studio.
Speaker: I was like well and truly at home with a baby, trying to figure out how to integrate those two worlds.
Speaker: And, you know, it's an interesting thing when you have a baby and you're an artist.
Speaker: I would go to like galleries and see curators and directors who I knew in Sydney.
Speaker: And I remember like several of them saying, you know, oh, right.
Speaker: So you're a mom now.
Speaker: And this real demarcation of, well, we'll forget you now.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This kind of real punctuation in other people's perception of you, as well as my own perception of self.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like you couldn't carve your own space for creation and for art making, right?
Speaker: Because you have a baby, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I think I bought into people's
Speaker: perception of that.
Speaker: Yeah, perception.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I didn't know where to go with that.
Speaker: And then we had a second baby.
Speaker: And then my husband decided, you know, he was pursuing his career and we moved to Canberra, which meant I had two babies and under three years of age.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I was in Canberra alone and no sort of supports.
Speaker: So I kind of feel like my experience of motherhood was protracted in that sense because I was alone and had two babies.
Speaker: And I didn't really know how to get back into the art
Speaker: scene or to go back into a work environment with babies and know kind of, you know, they get sick and you have to figure out what you do if they get sick and you're working.
Speaker: So I pivoted and tried to figure out how I could work from home with babies and make a career.
Speaker: So I worked more into coding and learned how to code and went into design and was making, and still I'm making websites and brand design.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Doctors and surgeons.
Speaker: So I have a design background as well.
Speaker: And I taught myself code whilst the babies were at home and then have been able to build quite a successful studio brand.
Speaker: doing that from home, which is great.
Speaker: But I think because of that, my identity, I had to kind of let go of that idea that I would be an artist ever.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was actually something really that I had to grieve for some time.
Speaker: Settled into the sense of I won't be an artist in this life.
Speaker: And then COVID came and I
Speaker: My kids are a bit older now and during COVID was obviously jumped into crypto and was researching that and researching that for my children really because I wanted to understand this technology would impact their lives one day.
Speaker: So I was kind of, I've always been interested in learning what is new.
Speaker: So yeah, I jumped into crypto, was exposed to NFTs and started to understand, okay, wow, this is a potential opportunity for me to step back into the arts in some way.
Speaker: And I didn't really know- What was that?
Speaker: I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm interested in understanding.
Speaker: Like, what was the first perception of it?
Speaker: Was it overwhelming?
Speaker: Because I feel like it's been the same for all of us, like us, you know, coming into the space the first time.
Speaker: And as we try to make sense of like this new world, right?
Speaker: But at the same time, it's something very, very obvious, right?
Speaker: Hits you in the face, right?
Speaker: Which is the scale and the variety and the quality too, right?
Speaker: And at least it was for me, but it sounds like it was the same reaction for you, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I remember just getting so excited for what was possible.
Speaker: And yeah, a real...
Speaker: rekindling of my artistic career and wanting to create, which I had sort of put on the back burner.
Speaker: I mean, I had been throwing myself into design work for clients and, you know, I'm designing a lot of different illustrations and medical illustration and brand design, which is all very creative.
Speaker: And I think I had accepted, oh, well, I get to still be creative in my career and that'll do.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And then yeah, seeing what was possible, just that, that concept that you can reach such an incredible audience, a global audience for your work and create and an exhibit and, and get some sort of financial return for your efforts in a collecting sort of way.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, it was incredible.
Speaker: So exciting.
Speaker: So I think, yeah, yeah, it was a good way to reenter making.
Speaker: And so it sounds that was pretty seamless for you, right?
Speaker: Obviously, your website design, your design agency, right?
Speaker: The coding, right, I'm sure, kind of eased the transition into the space.
Speaker: But would you say that classical training kind of helped, at least from the artistic perspective, as you settled in into Web3?
Speaker: Or would you say it had nothing to do with it?
Speaker: And it's like you could have come from working at a bank and discovered Web3 and been just as
Speaker: as successful or as... No, I would say that it does help in some ways for me.
Speaker: I think I identified just how much potential was in the space from a gallery perspective, having run galleries.
Speaker: Even that concept that you can connect with artists in DMs and interact with artists and collectors so openly and it's so immediate.
Speaker: that you can build connections in that way.
Speaker: I was never great with networking in person in galleries.
Speaker: I'm quite an introvert.
Speaker: So on Twitter, it's a different thing and you can really interact and get to know people, which is quite incredible.
Speaker: So I think I did identify that very early on that this was an exciting space to be in.
Speaker: And to kind of leverage that with your, you know, with your art practice is something that is very possible.
Speaker: Yeah, and at the same time, I think it's also just something about being around new technology that then led me to explore AI and be open to that.
Speaker: And also to recognize the historical moment that we're in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which, you know, comes from that.
Speaker: First and foremost, yeah, because it is historical for sure.
Speaker: I'm glad you emphasized that.
Speaker: So much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I couldn't give up an opportunity to be present and witness such a historic moment in art.
Speaker: You know, I think having studied art history, I never really thought that I would get to live through a period of time like, you know, the camera being invented or, you know, modernism coming along and, you know, people like really challenging what creative outputs are being made.
Speaker: And to be witness to that is just incredible in this moment.
Speaker: Yeah, I just kind of impressed.
Speaker: It's one of a kind of opportunity in life, you know, to watch it unfold as we speak, right, as we live our daily lives, right, and kind of really be, you know, being an integral part of the movement, right, and the...
Speaker: Because when it's all, when history will be written, when it's all said and done and we look back, th is is probably one of the most defining moments.
Speaker: It's the moment, you know, we literally cross that digital threshold, right?
Speaker: Where, you know, there's somewhat of a nut coming back from it, right?
Speaker: Because it's just going to be the new normal, right?
Speaker: And...
Speaker: And, you know, with more and more people, well, during COVID, it was a much bigger adaptation.
Speaker: But eventually, there will be a gradual migration, right, of people coming to the digital space.
Speaker: So we are here, you know, we've been here for the last two, three years kind of watching it happen.
Speaker: But it is something special to be, you know, to, you know, witness it firsthand.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Yeah, we've got a front row seat.
Speaker: Even just, you know, we're trying to figure out language to put to these new things like post photography and is it synthetic photography or AI photography?
Speaker: What are we going to call it?
Speaker: The language is actually something so fascinating that we're
Speaker: grappling with just in the moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker: And it's not happening without a fight.
Speaker: You know, there's, um, you know, there's, and I totally get it.
Speaker: It's, um, you know, it comes with the territory, right.
Speaker: And as new, new practices, new,
Speaker: New movements, new currents take hold.
Speaker: There's the struggle between the establishment and the newcomers, right?
Speaker: And there's valid points on both sides, right?
Speaker: And post-photography is one that I think it's touched a nerve, right?
Speaker: And it's kind of creating a little bit of a stir.
Speaker: But eventually, like you said, it will find its own classification.
Speaker: It will find its own iteration and, you know, like photography did at, you know, early century, you know, past century, right?
Speaker: Kind of fought the skeptics and then eventually prevailed and established itself as a legitimate, you know, fine art form.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I believe that identity is one of the core elements of the human experience.
Speaker: It's also front and center in your work.
Speaker: It's a theme that you explore consistently.
Speaker: Can you share with us how identity influences your work?
Speaker: And most importantly, how do you address it through your work?
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, look, identity is for sure.
Speaker: It's absolutely integral to my work and
Speaker: I think all portraiture in some way, you know, has to focus on the identity of the subject, but also potentially the artist.
Speaker: But I think, you know, I've always been somebody who is intrigued by humans.
Speaker: I've always watched humans and observed people from potentially, I guess, from the outside.
Speaker: I've sometimes always,
Speaker: often felt like I'm on the outside of things.
Speaker: Um, and that's maybe just my introversion, but I, I have always keenly observed human nature.
Speaker: Um, and then, yeah, I've, I've been interested in how people do life, um, and like the everydayness of life.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: just the reality of being human and, you know, with our nuanced sort of insecurities and our failings and, you know, emotions of disappointment and sadness and pathos and things have always drawn me to the subject of portraiture.
Speaker: And, you know, I used to collect found photographs as a child.
Speaker: Like we would go to antique stores or flea market sort of things.
Speaker: And I would always be drawn to these found photos of past humans who had been abandoned in some way, you know, left these little traces in shops of their, you know, previous lives, little black and white photos.
Speaker: And I collected them.
Speaker: I've got thousands of them.
Speaker: And I think they've always fascinated me, that concept that, you know, the portrait that's taken is a kind of signifier of death, of their passing, that passing moment, but also what happens when we go and what's left behind.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Those things have always intrigued me.
Speaker: the poeticness of that and now do you find do you find that your subjects are they and i've been trying i was trying i was trying to decipher that do you find do you do you think that your subjects are well settled into their identity or are they struggling with it are they because to me um the the stronger in my opinion the stronger the the sense of identity in a people in an individual in a
Speaker: the more sort of, not successful, but the more well-rounded that person or that people, you know, that culture will be.
Speaker: Because, you know, a strong sense of identity informs a being, right?
Speaker: Therefore, you know, provides that decisiveness of behavior.
Speaker: I don't know, it just makes for a much more rounded individual or people, right?
Speaker: So do you find that your subjects are...
Speaker: you know, very, very comfortable in their identity or do you feel like it's more of a, I don't know, a struggle or however you may want to define it?
Speaker: I love that reading.
Speaker: I think that's really interesting because I will say that I myself as a person feel more and more comfortable in my identity and who I am in the world only with age and
Speaker: and the wisdom that raising families and doing life has given me that perspective.
Speaker: I don't think I understood that as a younger artist and, you know, as a, you know, 20 something and with that security of self, and I'm not saying that I know myself very well, but I do think I have a sense of what I will accept and what I won't accept.
Speaker: And there's a kind of dignity in that moment, just being able to accept yourself.
Speaker: And I think for me, like I had to go through a period of,
Speaker: grieving being an artist or not being an artist in my life.
Speaker: And I can relate to people who maybe have to give up that dream and then to come full circle and be making again from that place is a really interesting space to navigate.
Speaker: And so I feel like I try and bring a dignity to the subjects that I'm making
Speaker: And they are quite solid in who they are.
Speaker: And that is something that has always been important to me.
Speaker: I think it comes down to, you know, understanding the gaze and the subjects that I try to represent.
Speaker: are quite often looking back at the viewer with that sense of, you know, strength and because they're looking directly at the viewer.
Speaker: And that's always been something that's quite important to me in portraiture, especially portraiture of women.
Speaker: Yeah, because obviously the gays, you know, the male gaze has such a long history in art and, you know,
Speaker: And I think that I really wanted to empower my subjects and have that as, yeah, that is something that's very integral to the making of the works that I'm thinking through.
Speaker: So there is a stoicism right in there.
Speaker: Stoicism, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, it does come through.
Speaker: It does read through.
Speaker: But, you know, I wanted to, I did wanted to ask.
Speaker: I just wanted to get your opinion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now, I noticed that you do some pretty impressive collecting of your own, right?
Speaker: What is your approach to collecting?
Speaker: Is it second natured or meaning is it a way to give back to the community and supporting your fellow artists?
Speaker: Or is there more of an intent in collecting?
Speaker: Yeah, I do collect quite a lot.
Speaker: I think more so because I've joined the Tezos community.
Speaker: Tezos is incredible for collecting, quite addicting.
Speaker: I did collect on ETH a little bit, but, you know, you have to be a bit more selective, obviously, on ETH as to who you're collecting, whereas on Tezos you can be a bit more playful, I think, which is lovely.
Speaker: So, yes, to some extent I do feel like I make decisions to collect from friends and support people that I'm, you know, building relationships with, absolutely.
Speaker: And that was the same before Web3.
Speaker: In real life, I would collect work from friends and colleagues who I was, my contemporaries who I was working with in studios and in the gallery system.
Speaker: And I think I am also trying to collect historical AI pieces because I do feel like that's
Speaker: For my children, maybe that's their future.
Speaker: I mean, I don't have a house to endow them with or I don't have wealth, you know, so I'm wondering, maybe this is an opportunity and that is definitely possible.
Speaker: something that I see as, yeah, potential for that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So there's definitely an intent there, right?
Speaker: There's a purpose, right, to the collecting, right?
Speaker: It sounds like it's the drive of any collector, right, to put together a purposeful collection, right, that reflects a particular purpose.
Speaker: a particular interest, a particular taste level that, you know, eventually becomes a, you know, an important body of work that is collected, right, through the years.
Speaker: And it becomes, in a way, a legacy, right, for you as well, that, you know, at one point you... Well, you know, like, there's no institutional collection like...
Speaker: what artists are building at the moment, especially of this early AI work.
Speaker: Institutions will come to this very late and try and gather collections with such depth and breadth from the early AI period.
Speaker: When that happens, I'm not sure, but in Australia, that would be follow on from America.
Speaker: I would say America would be the first
Speaker: where we would see that, or Europe maybe.
Speaker: But Australia will, you know, trail behind.
Speaker: And maybe I'll have this incredible collection of AI work that's, you know, could be viewed in some way as a complete collection one day.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: But yeah, listen, um, it's, there's, I think in collecting there's room for everybody, right?
Speaker: Because certainly you can have the, you know, you can have the means and, uh, you know, to, um, you know, go for the, for the big important works.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then there's also the, you know, the, I always go back to the, I don't know if you're familiar with Urban Dorothy, right?
Speaker: There are two, um, it was a married couple there, um,
Speaker: They put together one of the most important collections of modern art on a U.S. Postal Service and a library salary, I think.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: They were just out there every single day, just like visiting galleries, visiting studios and buying from up and coming artists that were nobody at the time.
Speaker: But it was just the commitment, the relentlessness and just being there early enough, right?
Speaker: And believing more than anything, right?
Speaker: And actually, there's a wonderful movie out there.
Speaker: It's a documentary, a Japanese director, a woman director.
Speaker: did it a few years back and covers their lives and their collection.
Speaker: I think it's called something urban door.
Speaker: I think it's called Herb and Dorothy, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's for everybody, right?
Speaker: You don't really need, um, the billions.
Speaker: If you have the, if you have the, I think if you have the self-assurance and you have the, the vision, uh, as to what you like and you are decisive about what you like and what you're going to pursue and, uh,
Speaker: I think there's, there's, there's enough art out there that we can all carve our own path, right.
Speaker: And put together our own, you know, our own private collection.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lily, there's a Victorian aesthetic to your AI portraits whose, whose subjects exude, you know, some degree of constraint, dignity and composure.
Speaker: I mean, at least that's what I see.
Speaker: What are you trying to communicate to us through them?
Speaker: Yeah, look, I've always been drawn to portraits and like I mentioned, you know, collecting old photos quite often, I guess in old found photos, they're quite often quite staged and the portrait is of a person looking directly at the viewer.
Speaker: So maybe that does inform my aesthetic, what I'm looking for.
Speaker: When I'm making work, the Victorian era, yeah, it's interesting you say that.
Speaker: I guess that also comes down to like that wood panelled room and it's a bit stuffy and that sort of aesthetic is interesting coming through.
Speaker: But the wood and the fabric,
Speaker: The patterning is something that I'm prompting into AI and it's important to me those things.
Speaker: I started to kind of gather references for my prompting based on what's important to me.
Speaker: And as an experiment, a research project, I suppose, with the AI to see what would happen.
Speaker: you know, reflecting on my childhood home where I grew up and the narratives around that home and my dad as a carpenter, it's all sort of tied into the narratives that I'm trying to explore with these works.
Speaker: So the house where we grew up, when I was a child, my dad was renovating it and he's an architect and a carpenter and he had a
Speaker: like a workshop in one end of the house where it was sort of, he was making all of the things and he'd knocked down walls and he was building out the back.
Speaker: And yet the house was being eaten by termites at the same moment.
Speaker: So it was a wooden house from the outside.
Speaker: What do they call that?
Speaker: Wood cladding or weatherboard sort of thing?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And it was being eaten.
Speaker: So he would wake in the night and listen to these ants eating his house and everything he'd put into that house for his family had to be destroyed.
Speaker: So we had to move from that house in the end because it couldn't be rescued.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Because, I mean, there is treatment for termite, but they couldn't?
Speaker: It was that advanced?
Speaker: I think it was riddled.
Speaker: It was riddled.
Speaker: Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
Speaker: So I'm trying to.
Speaker: work with that metaphor of holes in your home.
Speaker: And my dad at the moment is wrestling with dementia and he's elderly and my mum is looking after him as well and
Speaker: So I'm having conversations with them both about AI and crypto.
Speaker: It's really like the only two people that know that I'm doing this work apart from my immediate family.
Speaker: And they're fascinated.
Speaker: You know, they both turn 80 this year.
Speaker: They always ask, how's AI going?
Speaker: Or how's the NFTs?
Speaker: And they follow me on Twitter and want to see what's happening.
Speaker: I think they're so happy to see my energy back for creating and making.
Speaker: Right, right, right, right.
Speaker: So it's lovely to share it with them.
Speaker: And so I will talk to my dad about it.
Speaker: his past and ask him for like prompt ideas around different woods or different treatments of carpentry, joinery.
Speaker: And so I'm trying to build that into the process of what I'm making, trying to explore his story a little bit.
Speaker: And I don't know what drives me there.
Speaker: He's a really interesting fellow.
Speaker: I think after that house, he really,
Speaker: was burnt out from building and being an architect and lost all the energy for making.
Speaker: And we moved to another house where he would draw plans and ideate around what we would do with that house because it was really run down.
Speaker: And we were there for 14 years and he never made.
Speaker: And it was quite a stagnant time and I think he was quite depressed and
Speaker: that, you know, the termites eating his masterpiece, you know?
Speaker: Sure, sure, yeah.
Speaker: Interesting metaphor.
Speaker: And I resonate with it in some ways just in terms of my life and maybe saying goodbye to the potential of being an artist.
Speaker: In some ways I feel for him too.
Speaker: His potential as an architect, you know, he used to talk so incredibly about modernist architects like Mies van der Rohe and... Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Harry Sidler in Sydney.
Speaker: And yet, how do you grapple with never achieving that or not quite having that legacy left behind?
Speaker: And so I'm trying to explore that.
Speaker: What is that?
Speaker: And how do we celebrate just humans, you know,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, life comes at us in so many different facets, right?
Speaker: And it's a combination, right, of luck, circumstances.
Speaker: Some of us, it comes in the most unhindered way and, you know, without any obstacles.
Speaker: And it just, you know, it just happens, right?
Speaker: And for a lot of us, it happens with a lot of struggle.
Speaker: For a lot of people, it just doesn't come at all.
Speaker: And I'm from the perspective that to the extent that you were always engaged in the process of creation, of moving your own personal envelope forward or pushing your own boundary forward.
Speaker: I feel like it was definitely a life well lived, right?
Speaker: So it sounds like there was a little bit of an existential, not crisis, but a moment of doubt when it says, I've done all this work, I've put all this work into this house, I've designed it, and now having to move because obviously it was...
Speaker: you know, destroyed by the termite, you know, it could make for, you know, quite a setback, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm assuming it could be also, you know, psychological too.
Speaker: But like I said, it's ultimately to the extent that there was always that element of wanting to build, wanting to make one bigger than something bigger than yourself.
Speaker: I feel like it's, you know, it's a service to oneself and a service to some way in humanity, whether it's through
Speaker: uh the what was added to the conversation in general right from that from that uh from that creative output right so i can totally uh understand your father's perspective not an easy place to be in right but we have to be somewhat our own we have to be our own uh best advocates right and kind of like be less self you know self-condemning right in a way yeah that's right yeah so i suppose i'm trying to celebrate him yeah
Speaker: But there is an element, back to the question, there is an element, I mean, there is an element, do you say ornateness?
Speaker: There's, you know, there's like, especially on the costumes end of the subjects, you know, they have these like really elaborate and ornate, their capes, their mantles, their dresses, their, you know, whatever they are, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And very colorful and very rich in patterns.
Speaker: And then, like you said, these rich interiors.
Speaker: And I feel like you want us to really indulge in this sort of like visual kaleidoscope with this visual.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not minimal.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's stunning.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's gorgeous.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: It's, I think I have always like, I've loved collecting things in my life.
Speaker: And part of that is fabrics, patterns, I'm always drawn to pattern design.
Speaker: And so, and, you know, I used to patchwork as a child and I have always
Speaker: a lot of paraphernalia around textiles.
Speaker: I learned how to make lace, bobbin lace making and things.
Speaker: So I try and bring everything that I am to the AI prompting and see how that all combines together.
Speaker: And it's like a soup, I suppose.
Speaker: And you're putting in ingredients and seeing
Speaker: how that creates an identity for you as an artist and a style that resonates with you.
Speaker: And then I initially like approached AI with a kind of researcher's mind and what's possible here and can you get your own style with AI?
Speaker: Because at the time I started working with AI, it was, you know, version three of Mid Journey.
Speaker: the outputs that were coming through were all very similar.
Speaker: You could see artists, you know, grappling with the same aesthetics and the same sort of angel-like symmetry of these portraits of women, but really similar sort of outputs coming through.
Speaker: And that didn't interest me at all, but I wanted to see how far you could push it.
Speaker: And then, yeah, so I just was playing, seeing what was possible.
Speaker: And, yeah, it becomes like,
Speaker: I think the more you bring yourself to those tools, the more interesting it can get.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're at version 5 now, right, with mid-journey, right?
Speaker: Yeah, with mid-journey now.
Speaker: I mean, I've moved away from mid-journey.
Speaker: I'm using stable and Dali.
Speaker: But, yeah, V5 seems to be producing such perfect outputs, especially in that post-photography.
Speaker: So in such a short period of time, right, let's say the time that went between V3 and V5,
Speaker: the collective body of knowledge that, that, you know, that, that informs AI, right.
Speaker: That informs majority in this case is so exponentially fast.
Speaker: It's so, it's so, you know, you understand my question.
Speaker: It, it, it, it increases that, that, that much, that much.
Speaker: It's interesting, you know, to watch the learning going on there, you know, in the latent space, the mind of the,
Speaker: you know, the mechanical computer mind learning these new skills.
Speaker: It's quite an incredible thing.
Speaker: Frightening, but at the same time, fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And speaking of AI, I mean, it's a key tool in your toolbox for sure.
Speaker: How do you work with its imperfections and serendipity?
Speaker: Do you try to mask it and quietly conceal it or do you embrace it and just let it be?
Speaker: Yeah, I think you know the answer to this, but I love the imperfections, of course.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: It's something that you can only imagine possible.
Speaker: through these tools, you know, no artist has been painting like this before or producing imagery like this before.
Speaker: So to me, it's something very special to honour and hold up to the light because it shows that collaborative potential between artist and the tool and that output when there's like
Speaker: six fingers, eight fingers.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I mean, I don't understand needing to make that perfect.
Speaker: I have no qualms with having a hand like that because to me it signifies the tool within the work and that's not something to shy away from.
Speaker: I'm happy about that.
Speaker: And it shows a collaboration that's going on there and I embrace it.
Speaker: I will always embrace that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, in a way, I think it's, what's the right word?
Speaker: It's, you know, it's a way to acknowledge the tool, right?
Speaker: And to kind of acknowledge, appreciate it and give it its due respect, its due and acknowledge its role, right?
Speaker: As opposed to, as opposed to, you know, kind of
Speaker: correcting it, finessing it, almost hiding it, right?
Speaker: To a point that's like, okay, yeah, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't AI, you know, it could have been me or me, but what you're saying is like, you know what, it's almost like a taking a stand of pride of like, you know what, I am confident that I'm using this tool.
Speaker: It doesn't take away from my value as an artist, right?
Speaker: And I'm going to be very, very open with it.
Speaker: And I'm going to
Speaker: showcasing all its flaws and all its glories, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm not going to hide anything, yeah.
Speaker: There's something so poetic with those outputs.
Speaker: They shock me and they hit me so deeply, the beauty in them.
Speaker: And so I don't understand why we are – you know, why I, as an artist, would want to hide that.
Speaker: I understand some people are looking to create something that's maybe really realistic or –
Speaker: yeah, to hide those imperfections or to, but I have no need to like prove that I can do that.
Speaker: I, I, I could do that, but it's not something that you have to.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not, it's not part of my conceptual process to prove that I can alter and use Photoshop to alter a hand to make it perfect.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's always been the case from the very beginning when I started with AI, I just,
Speaker: always loved those imperfections.
Speaker: And so I think I just, I sort of champion them in the same way, you know, to me, it marks a certain period of learning that the AI is sitting in.
Speaker: The same as like when I look at my children's drawings from their childhood when they were young and there's developmental phases that I can see within their work.
Speaker: You know, there's a phase where the child draws a human with a circle and legs and arms coming off that circle.
Speaker: And then, you know, a couple of months later, you'll see the same child pop a head on top of a body and then have the arms and legs come off that body.
Speaker: And that's the brain really recognizing and observing what's happening, you know, in front of it and observing more detail, understanding that a head is
Speaker: is separate to this mass of body.
Speaker: And that's a phase that you can see literally in your children's drawings.
Speaker: And I feel the same with AI.
Speaker: We're going through the same process, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we're witnessing that learning.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: There's something so beautiful in it.
Speaker: And, well, with that in mind, I have a question for you.
Speaker: So your recent work, is it The Key or The Keys?
Speaker: I think it's The Key, right?
Speaker: The Key, yeah.
Speaker: The key, which, my God, how do I describe that piece other than stunning and spectacular?
Speaker: So did you have the final result in mind before you even started or did it come about as you went about the work?
Speaker: Yeah, it reminds me of a Klimt piece, you know?
Speaker: You're very kind.
Speaker: But is that in your mind or like are you able to envision that or you discover it as you go along?
Speaker: I did have a sense that I wanted it to be very patterned.
Speaker: I was working on several different pieces for this drop because Toko Deco had come to me asking for me to imagine a key.
Speaker: And I have a key that my dad gathered from a house.
Speaker: He was always working on properties, renovating or building
Speaker: restoring like old historic houses in Sydney because he comes from that, you know, carpenter joiner background.
Speaker: And he found this key on this property and he kept it.
Speaker: He probably shouldn't have, but he did.
Speaker: And we have this key in the family now.
Speaker: And it's quite a large, beautiful old tooled key.
Speaker: So I was initially drawn to that as an object.
Speaker: And I thought, how could I imagine that?
Speaker: And I wasn't sure whether I would just do a sort of more abstract work with just a key, but I always come back to portraits.
Speaker: There's something, I don't know, just always drawn to them.
Speaker: And so I was trying to figure out, okay, I want this to be very patterned because I wanted it to stand out from my current practice, which is a bit more geometric and wood inlay.
Speaker: um and hark back more to the era that this key belongs to that my dad took from the house it's from um i guess colonial australia so right the building was very colonial they had lots of fabrics i remember visiting it as a child in
Speaker: They had this incredible laundry room, like a linen cupboard full of linen and fabrics.
Speaker: And I remember thinking, one day I'll have a cupboard like that, full of beautiful fabrics.
Speaker: And so I was really trying to hark back to those fabrics, the patterns in the work.
Speaker: And in a way, I have this key and I intend to return it to the house once my dad passes because I
Speaker: I don't want him to get in trouble, but also I feel a weight of carrying this key around with me.
Speaker: So I will return it.
Speaker: But so I wanted to kind of have a self-portrait in some ways of me with this key.
Speaker: What a way to mark that and to remember that.
Speaker: So the house still exists and you know which house it is, sounds like, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a pretty prominent colonial house.
Speaker: heritage.
Speaker: Well, I mean, the work itself, you know, kind of mirrors the ornateness of the key because it is one of those like, you know, chunky keys, right?
Speaker: You know, they were probably opening this giant door, right?
Speaker: This, you know, this
Speaker: this like three meter tall door, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So was the drop, was that the theme of the drop?
Speaker: Cause it sounds like it was several artists, right?
Speaker: Participating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There were artists participating in this.
Speaker: It's actually Lawrence Fuller who is doing.
Speaker: Oh, Lawrence.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love Lawrence.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he does chess.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: through Twitter spaces and he's doing a, he did a chess themed drop himself.
Speaker: And now he's asked Toko to curate a group of artists who will sort of accompany his drop.
Speaker: And I think in some ways this key is it unlocks some functionality if you hold certain pieces from the drop to have some interaction with
Speaker: an in real life game of chess in New York at NFT NYC.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Oh, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the key is specifically was the only key in the collection.
Speaker: The rest are about chess, more about chess and being.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: So I want to switch gear and kind of want to take the opportunity of exploring a little bit the gender issue.
Speaker: And, you know, I want to address it from the woman's perspective.
Speaker: Do you think of yourself as an artist and, you know, the fact that you're a woman is almost second nature and quasi irrelevant or is it key to your identity?
Speaker: It's key to my identity.
Speaker: It's not irrelevant.
Speaker: And that's because the lived experience is real and it informs you as you go through.
Speaker: Good or bad, right?
Speaker: Yeah, good and bad, yeah.
Speaker: So I can't extricate that out of who I am.
Speaker: And, you know, it certainly does inform my work.
Speaker: When I came into the NFT space,
Speaker: I was struck by the fact that there was little representation that I identified with in the space as a woman.
Speaker: I mean, that was, you know, in 2021, there was lots of PFP projects, but few that I really resonated with.
Speaker: I know there was World of Women and there was a few other projects that were women-led, but I am, yeah, I'm not a sexualized woman.
Speaker: I don't identify in that way as much as,
Speaker: as the imagery that I saw in the space especially was quite sexualised.
Speaker: Women, yeah, artworks of women really sexualised and I just couldn't,
Speaker: find something that was speaking to me.
Speaker: So I did a series called Winter Women and that's what's on OpenSea.
Speaker: And that was some portraits of women in woolly jumpers.
Speaker: And that was kind of my first step into the space, trying to wrestle with that.
Speaker: and sense of identity and inclusion and having a bit more diversity what's there interesting okay yeah and so then yeah i think it's absolutely integral to who i am um yeah being a mother being a woman yeah
Speaker: Yeah, and I guess with that first project, it was sort of kind of your way to say, well, you know, this is what's out there.
Speaker: This is what's being represented.
Speaker: Let me state my position, right?
Speaker: Let me share my point of view, right?
Speaker: Let me create art or, you know, or showcase art that speaks to my, yeah, to my aesthetic and my vision, right?
Speaker: And you confidently put it out there, right?
Speaker: What was, I'm curious, what was the reaction?
Speaker: Because I'm sure it appeared as new and interesting.
Speaker: and different and fresh, right, compared to everything else that's out there, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, look, it was well supported and it was sort of a gradual drop of pieces every week for about five weeks.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it was very well supported.
Speaker: And I think, you know,
Speaker: There are other people like me out there who are mostly in jeans and a jumper, and so it resonated with other women and men collected the piece as well, the pieces.
Speaker: But, yeah, it was a fun project for me to get back into creating and into portraiture.
Speaker: And yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: It's, I don't know if you, you haven't seen it, I don't think, but it's still in my colors.
Speaker: My favorite color is like burnt umber.
Speaker: So there's a lot of... Well, I'll definitely look at it for the show for sure.
Speaker: But now would you say that the, you know, the female presence is growing not only in size, but in quality, in, you know, in addition to the conversation that's, as far as contributing to the conversation in the space overall?
Speaker: Would you say that?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: I do think so.
Speaker: I still think there's, you know, underrepresentation across the board of women.
Speaker: However, you know, there's really incredible female artists in the space who I would consider some of my closest friends and, you know, that's within the AI space, but also elsewhere there's, you know, there's really incredible women-led projects that have come into the space and, you
Speaker: Yeah, it's heartening to see, but I still think there's a huge disparity there.
Speaker: You know, even who is being curated into shows or asked to speak on panels at things like NFT NYC or quite often they're like segregated into a speaking panel for women.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know, and I hate that.
Speaker: That's too bad.
Speaker: We all need to be at the same table, you know.
Speaker: Let's designate two panels to, you know, to women artists, yeah, to creators, and let's put them together, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, over there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Over there.
Speaker: Yeah, it's unfortunate.
Speaker: But, you know, I guess it's the same as everything else, right?
Speaker: I feel like it's not just, you know, the crypto space.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We need the voices of many to have a cross-section of society.
Speaker: And that's, you know, diversity of all kinds is really important.
Speaker: And I do feel like Web3, we have, you know, there's lots of narratives around Web3 offering us that opportunity to kind of reset and change.
Speaker: and, you know, open it up to more voices and even tools like AI really does kind of democratize the access to creativity and voices that maybe we will have not heard because they haven't had any formal training or they don't have access to tools and materials, all of a sudden have access to creating and, you know,
Speaker: From that, we'll have more diversity in the space.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker: And I wonder if AI presents a unique opportunity for female artists to really take charge and kind of lead the way because there are quite a few female voices.
Speaker: I'm thinking about the Ivana Taos.
Speaker: I'm thinking about...
Speaker: I know you, I'm thinking about who else.
Speaker: There's so many of them.
Speaker: And so it's great that, you know, that we can say that, you know, it's a field of, you know, it's a field, it's a segment of the art world where, yeah, it could be female-led for sure.
Speaker: So super exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, I think for people who are, you know, maybe,
Speaker: less able or have you know less um access you know you know in a sense i think that's also really exciting to see what creative output and what narratives will come from that yeah we're here for it
Speaker: Yeah, we're all here for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's talk about color.
Speaker: You know, color study is one of the one of the defining elements of your of your art, right, which, you know, you leverage in a masterful way.
Speaker: Borderline, I would say borderline genius.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you know, these are not false praises.
Speaker: This is, this is true.
Speaker: I feel like nobody does color the way you do it.
Speaker: I mean, can you share how color theory informs your work and, you know, how you achieve these magical tableaus?
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: That's very kind.
Speaker: It's too kind, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah, with colour, I think I am really drawn to like my favourite tones are very earthy browns and that's always been the case.
Speaker: It's also what I'm drawn to wear as well.
Speaker: And I think you can't really go wrong when you pair things with brown.
Speaker: I know it sounds silly, but that's probably as like in-depth colour theory as I get.
Speaker: neutrals and earth tones, you know, provide an incredible base canvas for introducing color in an interesting way.
Speaker: So that's definitely, I guess, consciously what I'm thinking through with color.
Speaker: And at the same time, AI can sometimes really surprise you with what it imagines, with what you're prompting.
Speaker: And so sometimes I'm guided by that as well.
Speaker: And, you know, my process with AI is to initially prompt in stable diffusion, and then I move across to outpaint with other tools, sometimes Dali, sometimes Runway, and sometimes within like stable diffusion itself.
Speaker: And that outpainting process allows you to be selective with how you
Speaker: introduce or erase sections of the initial prompt.
Speaker: So you can be quite specific in how you curate that output further from the initial.
Speaker: And I find that the most interesting place where I really feel like it is this collaborative back and forth.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: you know, further from just the written prompt, you have this ability to have control, more control over what's actually happening.
Speaker: And that's where I think you can kind of really focus on what you want to bring out of the work.
Speaker: But yeah, so yeah, I don't know, like I have no real formal colour training.
Speaker: I just think
Speaker: I've got an eye for that.
Speaker: I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker: I didn't go through like a Bachelor of Fine Arts or something.
Speaker: I never did formal training.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: My master's was a research project and that was, you know, a kind of contained study that I did really without that kind of formal theory, colour theory.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, to me it's one of the main characteristics of the –
Speaker: of the collective works, right?
Speaker: It's just the, it's a common thread to me, you know, aside from the richness of the subjects, right?
Speaker: It's more the, you know, the way color is interpreted and the way it's, you know, whether it's on the interiors, whether it's on the clothing, whether it's on the backdrops, it just makes for a really, really amazing overall experience, you know, looking at the work, right?
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, very, very special.
Speaker: Can you talk to me?
Speaker: I'm,
Speaker: borderline obsessed with the Inglewood heat.
Speaker: It's, it's Inglewood heat, right?
Speaker: That, uh, uh, Ingle Nook.
Speaker: Oh, Ingle Nook.
Speaker: Oh, I know what it's called Inglewood.
Speaker: I know what I get.
Speaker: Ingle Nook heat.
Speaker: Um, I mean, that piece packs a punch, uh, as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker: Um, what, what, what's behind it?
Speaker: Like what's, what, what, what is it about?
Speaker: I mean, it's just, it's just spectacular.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker: I was really happy with that piece for the show.
Speaker: So in this house where we grew up, we had an inglenook, which is, I suppose, a word that is like an old Scottish word for the hearth of the house, but it was like this little nook of off the living room.
Speaker: It was sort of built into the room and
Speaker: had these wooden chairs either side of a big fireplace and then two little windows.
Speaker: And it's a cosy space, I suppose.
Speaker: But when I was building this piece, and it has such a square structure behind the portrait of the two men, it reminded me of this cosy space and they're all wrapped up in their fur.
Speaker: So I really, like, it reminded me of the Inglenoch where I grew up.
Speaker: Is it typical of a Scottish household, the Inglenoch?
Speaker: Oh, I think so.
Speaker: I did some research into the word and the heritage goes back to Scotland, so I'm assuming so.
Speaker: And the house we grew up in was kind of a federation house, but
Speaker: It had this interesting room, which is not common in Australia really, to have a fireplace and a room built just for that.
Speaker: It was such a beautiful house, my memory of it anyway.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then I remember, I recall this story of my dad telling me he was houseminding with a friend when he was younger at Harry Seidler House in Sydney.
Speaker: And he told me Harry Seidler had this beautiful fur rug on the bed and so he took his clothes off and lay on the rug naked and just felt the fur to his skin.
Speaker: And, you know, obviously that story impresses on a child somewhat.
Speaker: So I have held onto this memory and when I was prompting these figures with the fur, I was thinking of him and
Speaker: He's quite an interesting fellow.
Speaker: I sort of think there's a lot of secrets that are untold around his identity and who he is, who he considers himself to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I've always wondered about my dad.
Speaker: And this story just sat in my mind, so it made sense for me to build this scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And it's a spectacular work.
Speaker: I mean, it's just a...
Speaker: It's gorgeous.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: I obviously showed my dad afterwards, and his memory is going, obviously, because he has dementia.
Speaker: And he said, how do you remember these things?
Speaker: Because it will spark something.
Speaker: And his long-term memory is really great, more the short-term.
Speaker: And so then he was telling me,
Speaker: you know, all the things he remembers from that night and, and being there with his friends.
Speaker: So it's nice.
Speaker: And what, what, um, what show was it part of that work?
Speaker: Uh, that was the camp creme drop.
Speaker: Oh, you did.
Speaker: Oh, that was part of the, Oh, it was part of camp.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't know.
Speaker: Well, I didn't know that.
Speaker: Just, I'm just can't remember.
Speaker: Um, that just happened to, that was like, that was like yesterday.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that's that's the problem there's like so many different drops and i can't even keep uh keep them straight in my mind um i know that's mikey's mikey's project yeah that was that was a that was a great that was a great a lot of fun it was a lot of fun yeah it was great community um projects as well like everyone getting in on the theme i thought it was great yeah yeah yeah everybody rallying around the theme yeah it was a lot of fun
Speaker: So Lily, quick question.
Speaker: So what fellow artists are you looking at these days?
Speaker: Like whose work do you admire that you pay attention to?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, great.
Speaker: It's a great opportunity to highlight some artists.
Speaker: I mean, obviously within the AI space, we're like one big studio of artists all working in quite close proximity, seeing –
Speaker: You know, new works coming through.
Speaker: It's such an incredible way to be working.
Speaker: And I think there's a lot of influences that you can see coming through different artists picking up on themes and running with ideas, which is an incredible way to work, I think.
Speaker: It is like, you know, a modern-day artist studio.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or a collective at the very least, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker: And, like, we've got contemporaries who are –
Speaker: Yeah, we can see what they're experimenting with in real time, which is pretty special.
Speaker: But I think, yeah, I've got, I actually wrote down a whole range of names in terms of artists that obviously inspire me and that I consider great artists within the space.
Speaker: Yeah, there's some artists that initially inspired
Speaker: introduced me to AI, like Anna Kondo, whose work is so beautiful.
Speaker: And she was really pioneering like early experiments with portraiture with AI.
Speaker: And I really enjoy that.
Speaker: That was sort of January, February 2021.
Speaker: And she's fearless and wonderful, too.
Speaker: Yeah, she is, she is.
Speaker: Anna's one of a kind.
Speaker: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker: But, yeah, other artists like Marina Amadov, she is producing beautiful work at the moment.
Speaker: Pale Kirill, Grafica, Mowi, Wellington.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, Wellington, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I love his work, yeah.
Speaker: Beautiful portraits, just so stunning.
Speaker: And, you know, I think...
Speaker: like being in that space is just, yeah, it's really fueling and I think you're constantly pushing yourself and evolving because there's such immediate feedback and iteration within, yeah, close proximity with other artists.
Speaker: It's really beautiful.
Speaker: And then, you know, there's artists in real life, contemporary painters who I'm,
Speaker: I love the work of and I also collect as a beautiful Australian painter who was based for some time and maybe still based in the south of France.
Speaker: But his name is Geordie Kowick and he's been exhibiting quite incredibly across the US and in Europe as well.
Speaker: And his paintings are just stunning.
Speaker: really raw and naive in a way, but just gorgeous, really beautiful still lives.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's a Pakistani painter called Salman Tor, and his work is just beautiful, beautiful oil paintings.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: There's so many artists that I could mention.
Speaker: There are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, it sounds like you're pretty active on the collecting side of things.
Speaker: I wish I could be more.
Speaker: I don't have the funds, but yeah.
Speaker: I know, right?
Speaker: I'll collect from afar.
Speaker: Yes, one could be collecting all day long, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's easier to collect on Tezos.
Speaker: Just, I'll just use my profits and pop it back into the community.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So Lily, we've come across, we're at the one, uh, one hour and 20 minute mark.
Speaker: So I feel like we need to, uh, we're close to wrapping it up.
Speaker: So I'm going to, I'm going to ask you the last question that I ask everybody, everybody hates this question, but I ask it anyway, uh, which is, um, Lily in, uh, in one year, Lily in five years and Lily in 20 years.
Speaker: I saw you.
Speaker: Where do we find you on March 30, 2024?
Speaker: Where do we find Lily?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have a blanket answer for all of those things, which is just artist.
Speaker: Artist in one year, artist in five years, artist in 20 years.
Speaker: I feel very grateful to reclaim that title.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: That's a noble –
Speaker: goal, right?
Speaker: It's a noble life goal, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And to be a working artist, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, you know, my punctuation of career is ending and my babies are growing up.
Speaker: So it feels...
Speaker: you know, I think your 40s, your 50s, you have wisdom, you have a sense of purpose and a drive to make the most of those years.
Speaker: So that's, yes, without a doubt.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: Well said, Lily.
Speaker: So listen, I wanted to thank you for making the time for taking the time to join me on the on the podcast and really sharing your
Speaker: you know, your vision, your background, your formative years, and most important, like really, you know, peeling the layers of your art, right, and kind of get into the core of it, what informs it, what makes it special, and so that we get a better perspective into your creative process so that we can collect even more, right, and as we are persuaded by the
Speaker: uh, they're just the raw talent behind it.
Speaker: Um, so again, I wanted to thank you.
Speaker: I wish you a long, uh, and prolific career.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, we're all here for it.
Speaker: So, um, thank you again.
Speaker: I've had such a lovely time getting to know you too.
Speaker: It's been so lovely.
Speaker: Thank you so much for asking me questions and, and wanting to know about my work.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, it's lovely and big hugs to you.
Speaker: I'm so grateful.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: My pleasure.
Speaker: For everybody listening, thank you for joining us.
Speaker: Again, this is Michele Colonna.
Speaker: I'm your host.
Speaker: And you can find me on Twitter at the handle mcolonna65.
Speaker: That's M-C-O-L-O-N-N-A-6-5.
Speaker: Until the next episode.
Speaker: Bye-bye, everybody.
