Hey friends! Just getting back into the groove of things from my recent trip out to Brazil 🇧🇷. It was an unforgettable experience and missing Rio so much.

The Rio Art Residency was the first official event of the Selkie collection - a week-long artists’ residency in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil out in the bohemian neighbourhood of Santa Teresa. We stayed at this beautiful villa where we painted day and night for a week.

 

There were 19 artists who are at different stages in their careers creating and learning together, inspired by a new environment and each others’ company. In addition, 3 renowned Brazilian artists joined the residency as day guests and were onboarded to the digital art scene.

I'm still digesting all the amazing things that came from this experience. For me it was the relationships. Everyone had a different set of skills and techniques, but the general outcome was relating with one another, helping each other, and pushing boundaries in our creative practice. I for one learned so much from each and every artists. It's funny b/c I work like a 9-5'er. My brain stops thinking after that set time, but these artists here were living and breathing this until they couldn't stand anymore. We'd eat and instantly they'd move back to their painting. We'd go grab drinks at a bar, and boom, they'd set up lights late night into the evening to start a new project right when we got home. It was so inspiring and loved every moment of it. I think towards the end of the week, around 100 paintings were created by this group. Unreal amounts of creativity here and haven't seen anythnig like this before. Selkie brought together an increidble group of people and can't thank her enough for what she did for us.

My goal of this residency was to explore new techniques while pushing my existing practice. Instead of coming out with many pieces, I focused on one large painting, then created quite a few watercolor sketches to capture Brazil in my perspective. It's sparked so many cool ideas, I need a year there just to bring them to life. It's so rad!

At the end of the week, we hosted a private art show with friends, family, and collectors...and of course Samba. There was a band there where we danced the night away. It ruled so much.

I'm happy to say, a local Brazilian couple resonated with my painting and now a proud collector of this new body of work. I'm so happy and fortunate it's staying in Rio to display in their homes. For me, all my work is based on location, so the fact that my paintings resonate with folks makes me super proud of my work. Thank you so much!

I'll share out the painting in a few weeks as the residency is putting together a catalog, and an online digital token drop that will have everyones artwork together for sale as an NFT. This way you get to collect everyone's piece all in one token as a digital form and help fund the next residency here. The physical pieces from all the other artists will also be available for purchase separately. More details on that soon.