I first came across digital art approximately 15 years ago, at the age of 10. Even though I grew up around it, I never really had the chance to fully grasp and comprehend its dynamics. Growing up without any particular artistic education, I found and embraced this growing passion through cartoons, French BDs and any drawing-blogs you could find on the internet back then.
At the same age, I started dreaming about becoming an animator, creating comics, cartoons, and movies. In short, I became obsessed with the idea of birthing my very own universe.
It is also touching, now that I think about it, to remember how, as a kid, I used to wonder what kinds of pens these artists were using to get such impressive results. But it wasn’t made with a pen, it wasn’t even drawn on paper, it was all pixels ! I remember how mind-blowing that discovery was to me: realizing that most art I felt drawn to was digitally-created marked the beginning of a memorable journey.
I patiently waited until my birthday to ask my father for a graphic tablet, which was mad expensive at the time. I got a $40 pad, already a huge victory for me. In spite of the fact that my dad did not understand much about it, I had been drivelling on the same topic for over a year. This gift made me the happiest kid on earth, and marked the beginning of years of self-training at 11. All praise to YouTube tutorials and blogs.
My main influences, at that time, were what we refer to as CalArts style (like Adventure Times or Gravity Falls !).
The simplicity of the style, alongside the endless possibilities, to, for example, subtly enhance details & symbols continue to fascinate me.
One of the most frequent remarks about my art is my attention to detail. But to me, this is the easiest and most pleasant part, as I’m just having fun. It’s like doing a puzzle with simple pieces, making all the characters childish and interacting with each other.
At 14 I experienced what we can call a burnout. It’s an age where you feel the need to find your way and somehow I applied ten times more pressure on myself. Things wasn’t going so well at home as well, and I felt discouraged, sometimes even guilty, every time the result weren’t looking like the piece of a professional illustrator. I thought I was never going to be noticed or going to an art-school with those kind of results. Should realize that I was only..14, and that I still had so many years ahead of me, to perfect my craft and reach excellence.
I somehow believe that the reason I felt so much pressure is linked to my social background and the fact that I did not grow up immersed in an artistic community. I don’t want to elaborate on my social background but still feel like because of it, I had the feeling to work 10 times more than the other kids from the suburb to reach a fraction of my dream. So I was being very hard on myself. Probably too much.
Because of that self-imposed pressure, I didn’t dare to at least grab a pen for years, and even traded my craziest dreams against more “realistic” ones. I deleted all files and threw all notebooks I could find, which was, I must admit, a pretty destructive reaction.
At 20, I needed to get out of my comfort zone. After graduating high school and a couple of years losing myself in a curriculum I didn’t like, I moved to Paris to study something new. I still don’t know why I did that, and today acknowledge that it was pretty impulsive, but a part of me wanted to try my luck there. I moved without any particular purpose after getting accepted to college for a communication degree.
Living by myself for the first time was not easy. I stayed at a shitty place, was lonely and didn’t even have enough money to eat correctly. Finding a job was not easy since it was during Covid and college shut down. And so naturally, I grabbed a pen. I used my last $200 to buy a graphic tablet. This time no pressure, I just wanted to create to express myself, to have fun.
It was far from what I used to draw, no CalArts. I simply needed to express my anger and find a way to rebel against a world I couldn’t understand or appreciate. I was pretty against the idea of documenting myself, as I only aimed at venting my frustration.
However, I am still grateful to a handful of online artists that helped me go through this period with their art. Fascinated by how they could express themselves with such power and meaning in their pieces, I saw myself in their art and felt so connected.
I could mention a lot of them, but I think my main inspirations were (and remain) Etiene Crauss & Karisma.
The inspiration and strength their art gave me during this period were pure. In a way their art helped me. I felt less alone contemplating their art.
In a world where you expect to feel these emotions in a museum, in front of a world-known artist’s piece, I felt all that holding my phone, zooming on every detail, and appreciating the color combinations. This suddenly reinforced my will to create more and more. I felt resurrected as my childhood dreams all of a sudden came back.
They’re digital artists just like me, probably around my age. To all the artists in this space, as long as you create with a genuine feeling, just know that there is someone, somewhere watching and enjoying and being inspired by it. From the moment you took a pen and decided to share with the world, you have this responsibility that one day it will fall into the eyes of those who needed to see that.
That is also why it is essential to put your art on chain. Thanks to new technology, we have the ability, or must I say the privilege of witnessing the evolution and growth of every new rising artist. The creation of an ecosystem dedicated to art and creative minds in general, appears, to me, as the best legacy we can offer to the up-coming generations.
Don’t lock me up as someone who only draws. I have no particular gift, the only one that I can pretend to have is the ability to visualize something strongly enough to bring it to life, regardless of the cost of hours, months of training, or whatever. After a couple of years of experimenting with diverse mediums, I gradually began to assert my identity.
I just felt more mature as an artist and needed to express myself in an aesthetic that would allow me to build, nurture a narrative and develop it through time.
The first approach of my style was « DOWO », the fire thief. I wanted to combine every aesthetic I encountered and loved throughout my artistic journey. From CalArts I used to admire as a kid, symbolism as a teenager and pop-surrealism, more recently.
Just like a fusion of my past, my present, and my future. Something timeless. It was also around this time I adopted the name Wÿn. I Felt reborn.
I wanted it to appear as simple, a straightforward representation of myself. Drawn with a pen and charcoal brushes, surrounded by an abundance of symbols, cartoon-looking characters, a modern Prometheus, if you will.
It is also my first monochromatic work. Let me explain why it’s been an obsession for a few months now.
First of all, the process and aesthetic part is, to me, more enjoyable on monochromatic. I can fully dedicate myself to the texture, the shading, the line and composition. It just fits right to me.
In 14 years of practice, I never felt so free. I’m indeed an obsessive and passionate individual. Therefore, using one chrome is, to me, the embodiment of my expression where I can deploy everything with no distractions.
Yes, I see color, as a distraction in my work. I want my viewer to focus on the emotions. And the message behind it and this way I can encourage the spectator to take a few more times in front of the piece. Just sit and appreciate it. There is no color so pay attention to the details.
A representation of myself, some cartoonish-pop characters interacting with each other, a surrealist decor and symbols hidden everywhere. I guess that’s the recipe, but let’s please not forget the experimenting dimension of my work, as it is part of it that defines me as well. You’ll never see two times the same disposition. My purpose is to explore every face of my world.
Am I forgetting something ? Oh yeah, the blue !
There is no reason apart from the fact that I fell in love with that color and its nuances. I was always sketching with the blue and always so sad to delete it so I could place the « final colors». It was time for this particular shade of blue to shine. The blue wasn’t supposed to be the Final product and in the end, it reflects my journey. I wasn’t supposed to be the Final Product as an artist either. I just thought let’s make a full commitment to that specific color because you love it and whenever you feel love for something, you feel at home. You might also notice a blue square in my pieces, it’s simply a representation of a pixel, here, omniscient.
At that very moment im just having a lot of fun with my art, exploring other dimensions.
Among my inspirations, there’s Stephen Gibb the pop-surrealism king for me, and Gustave Doré for his legendary illustrations of the Bible (L’Imaginaire au pouvoir) alongside artists I encounter daily on social media.
Murakami is furthermore a big inspiration of mine, I feel connected to his artistic process. The figures he represents always seem to capture the absolute totality of the artist’s emotional, physical and psychological transformations. Portraying himself in this art constantly regards the artist as inseparable from branding strategies. Hey, maybe I will never become a model, but at least my face will be still everywhere one day.
Music too, influences my art. Daft Punk, Nujabes and Kanye West are among my child-heroes, they cultivated such a rich visual world around their work and if you ever imagine a soundtrack while looking at my work there it is. Besides, I am also inspired a lot by sounds, smells and words.
Whenever i encounter a new sound, a new smell, a touch, feeling, or word, they instantly have a color or image associated in my mind.
I see an image and it’s like a sparks combination, finding inspiration everywhere. Suddenly I find my thinking “Oh what if I mix this classical disposition with another one, look, there is a spoon at this restaurant. What if I draw and add some eyes and a pissed-off face because the spoon doesn’t like what is on its head or...whatever.”
I dedicate my wholesale to my creations.
All my pieces are connected, and I want them to be as beautiful and straightforward as a poem. There is indeed a narrative that the viewer can easily grasp. It’s a story about a person discovering different realities, aiming at exploring, catching even, all the possible feelings and experiences one would miss.
I believe that I am not what you would call a traditional artist or a classical art connoisseur. I’m solely devoted to creativity, to myself and to my dreams. I’m everybody and myself at the same time. Ultimately I’m Wÿn, a guy aiming at developing something inspiring and lasting.
One day I intend to bring my universe to life and produce an animation movie before pouring myself into all kinds of art (clothes, architecture…).
My main goal is to inspire and give hope to kids like me. I want to show them that they can create everything they have in mind and that this particular universe they created from themselves, far from norms and traditions, is not ridiculous.
All praise to the internet and digital art for that. The pixel is my salvation. I found my place on the internet, and established web3 art as my home, making me a web3 native artist.
A place where an artist can eat every month, because this is the start of the decentralization of the art world. I now have the opportunity, as a creative, to solely dedicate myself and my time to my art. I will forever cherish this opportunity.
Thank you to all the genuine people I met in this space. I’m very proud to grow here and looking forward to building strong connections around the world.
Pixel Core, coming soon !
