UNDRGRND ARTIST: OLI SORENSON
MARCH 25TH, 2022
Each week artists are commissioned for a piece of art through the UNDRGRND Grant Program. 100 NFTs are minted and randomly airdropped to UNDRGRND Membership Cardholders. To find out how you can be featured as an UNDRGRND Artist check out our Discord.
In a vast ocean of profile picture collections, 3D renders, Artificial Intelligence art, particle simulations and pixel artists, landing on Oli Sorenson’s page feels like a nice relaxing moment, a sigh of relief and a safe haven. The simplicity of his art and his choice of colour pallet is beautiful, awe-inspiring and reminds me of how infinite we are in the cosmos.
Think about it for a moment, if Oli can convey the message and invoke the feeling of a broken-down apartment building after a storm, like he did in STORM (study) with just two colours, imagine what he would create with all the colours. Granted I know that’s not usually how art works, but, gee, Oli can pack a punch in a 1000x2000 pixel image while using 2 colours. When you really stare into this piece, you can see that the buildings also look like faces leaning onto one another. I feel the sense of living in a broken society. The description of this piece states that this is a study for an upcoming animation. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
Moving onto the next OBJKT in the collection, FLOOD (study), which could be the same building in STORM (study), I am reminded of the line puzzles in Jonathan Blow’s, The Witness. The same goes with what I assume to be next in the collection SEWERS (study). The lines on this illustration are mesmerizing to follow, and I like how they overlap with each other at times. However it does make me ponder why an apartment building needs so many sewer lines, but I think that’s just me reading too much into things.
In SMOG (study), we see our old friend the building, and more importantly, two really brilliant gradients. If you’ve been following my writing, you know I am a lover of well executed gradients.
A question I have been asking myself a lot lately is, with all this famine, war, and poverty, are some people going to leave what we perceive as base-reality, and start living in Virtual Reality? Or virtual realities? Who knows, it is entirely a possibility, and as I was daydreaming and thinking about these questions, I see the final work in the “Study” series is named VR-MAN () - once again a greatly executed gradient, and a story told in just one image. I love how Oli showed us his progress into this new animation he is making, and how he is striving to make the viewer a part of the making-of experience. As a person who always watched “The Making of” parts of DVD movies, I really appreciate what Oli is doing with this.
Having enjoyed the studies, I naturally wanted to explore Oli’s finished animations.
Looking at Deforestation, the animation is executed brilliantly. The turbulent noise background is great and ties the whole piece together. The trees are brilliantly made and the dichotomy between the trunk of the trees and the bushy top area catches my eye. Mainly because the top part of the trees look pixelated due to Oli’s choice of colour. The bottoms however are as crisp as polygons can get. The way Oli establishes lighting on the foreground is excellent too, definitely showing when the trees are cut. All of these well thought out elements make this animation uniquely Oli’s. As a long time fan of seamless loops, I really love how this piece loops. Cheers to the animator.
I am also a fan of the messages Oli is relaying through his artwork, in Deforestation especially, and Intensive Egg Farm along with Chicken Slaughterhouse and Intensive Pig Farm.
When all is said and done, I think every Tez collection needs an Oli Sorenson. He might even become a household name in the next 10 years, you never know. Thank you for the beautiful art, Oli.