UNDRGRND DIGS 033
JULY 11TH, 2022
5 Artists From the UNDRGRND Collection
UNDRGRND DIGS is a periodical feature showcasing artists that the UNDRGRND curators dig. We sift through the social media and NFT platforms to find the best artists waiting to be discovered. UNDRGRND believes in the artists we feature and we will purchase NFTs from each artist featured. Purchases will be airdropped to reward UNDRGRND community members.
Mentalnoise is a designer and visual artist from Colombia. In her work we find a combative spirit that portrays, through an impressive style, many of the struggles that Latin American communities are going through, echoing in a society that makes many realities invisible and violent. It’s a beautiful journey to see the day-by-day process of an artist looking to say something with impact on problems of the real world. Her amazing art feels street and intimate at the same time, and it has a specific yellow tone that works as a loyal connector between every piece. Recently, that tone has changed into a variation of pastel pink and we suspect this speaking to a new phase coming. There's a long path of new adventures for Mental, now she’s producing a whole new collection of sneakers on Exchange, a dream come true for a sneakerhead like her. You can feel the vibe of the streets whispering, telling and even yelling in an iconic way about fundamental issues that sometimes we don’t see: the bias around who can claim basic human rights and who cannot.
Fashion designer, 3D sculptor, illustrator Marietta Bernal’s brings multi-discipline to her universe. Her collection, Possible Identities, shows the experience an artist can put together to come up with a character design development outside of the trending PFP and speculative side. We can tell this is a hand-made profile picture, non-generative, and every piece is part of a whole, a searching process, capable of expanding her own production to new paths naturally. Shapes, colors and textures are so important in her work, fundamental to define each identity she creates. In the middle of an accelerated market, where people are desperate to find automatized ways to create generative–and sometimes meaningless–PFP collections, Marietta offers a long-term process where identities can evolve or radically change in multimedia format but always holding her own stylish fundamentals.
From the mountain range of Córdoba, Argentina, Leo Torcello brings us the endless possibilities at the intersection between order and chaos. His collection is like an ancient coffer with intriguing machines to discover, all powered by some type of tech that works in another reality with different laws of physics. That’s how we merge into his universe of interdimensional gadgets, interplanetary scenes and impossible loop motions. We must admit we have a weakness for perpetual movements, and Leo knows how to take advantage of it. Chaotic pendulums is an oxymoron that allowed him to experiment with an art series in an everyday searching and auto-sustainable artistic process creating mesmerizing NFTs for collectors like us. Now he has a wide collection with a variety of designs, architecture and tech of global culture on audiovisual pieces.
You see the sparkles when La Delmas mints an NFT. She is a talented visual artist from Argentina who knows how to highlight her work in the digital art scene. With her collections, Nena Trampa and Sweet Sparkles, she creates an empowered and self-confident character universe of immortal women and heartbreaking stories. All the characters offer a statement of identity through a provocative look and a “Conurbano Bonaerense” iconography that travels places in a universe that is close to us. Her pieces don’t conform to any hegemonic stereotype, so each NFT is unique. From the southern area of Buenos Aires, La Delmas' works emerge standing out with their glitter and sparkles, a beautiful color palette, spray-style shading and tattoos.
Welcome to Morondanga Republik! The official religion in Morondanga Republik is Peppology, and Dramacuina Lacrimaria is the national flower. In the year 1567, Filomenus became King of Morondanga Republik after his mother, Queen Verena was found in her chambers, strangled to death by Muriel, by her own boa constrictor. Filomenus was only six years old. The whole NFT collection is a unique fairytale of a young king with a magician friend, a lot of frogs, and the best summer carnival on these lands. Flora Márquez refers to her work as if she were “the artist in charge of making the stamps of this country” and introduces us to the story of Morondanga Republik through stamps. The stamp format on each NFT is a small part of the story that continues this magical tale and tells us more about these rare characters and their mythology. The metadata of each piece offers us a guide to navigate and discover all the secrets and relationships between the different stories, in the best "choose your own adventure" style. The universe that Flora Marquez has created is fascinating.