Julien Nguyen to Develop First Cryptoart Project with Accursed Share
2021 has been Julien Nguyen’s year. In July-August, he was the youngest painter to have a solo exhibition at Matthew Marks’ prestigious New York gallery. The world and the artworld alike are his oysters. There is little reason, other than being a true artist, for anyone in his position to dabble in the newfangled NFT space. Yet here he is, developing a project, far removed from anything he’s done before, with Accursed Share.
As we start on our collaboration, we are at freedom to share some inklings of what has been on Julien’s mind, and how we’re planning to frame it. He is considering creating a Live2D avatar or series of avatars as digitally painted figures, in differing stages of Borg assimilation. These will be, in other words, organic beings—beautiful bodies—that become inscribed into a cybernetic hive through mechanical body modification. The process will involve digital drawing and animation rigging, with an aesthetic that is part Expressionist, part manga. These cyborgs will be unlike anything the space has seen before: ominous, erotic, hyperstylised. They may also be quite literate, for reasons we will gradually disclose.
Julien’s collaboration with Accursed Share will be a tour de force. Here is a powerful, analog artist entering a new creative period that explores the nearly sexual tension between traditional and non-traditional ways of making (and being), and the transformations their congress involves. In an early working document, Mónica encouraged Julien to “produce an art mule: half-horse, half-ass, and smarter than either.” Wait until you see what that looks like.
Mónica has written in depth about Julien’s work and method here.
