While you see a Zhuk portray, there’s no mistaking it as anybody else’s work. The Azerbaijani artist’s model has change into a staple of Web3 over the past yr, injecting a digital-heavy NFT house with some refreshingly historical aesthetics. A 3rd-generation household artist, Zhuk brings a uniquely fashionable lens to classical figurative portray, usually depicting the human physique as if suspended in water or seen in a dreamy, flow-like state. This method permits her to play with form, distinction, and colour in fascinating methods.
Zhuk’s work has been featured in Time’s NFT initiative Slices of Time, collected by a number of the largest names within the house (together with Cozomo de Medici), and featured at legacy auction house Sotheby’s, a notable achievement for any artist. A deserving honoree of 2023’s NFT100, nft now caught up with Zhuk to speak about her work, how she received into the NFT house, and the way she’s constructing a Web3 model to achieve past the partitions of her canvas portray.
A gradual and regular rise
In April 2021, Zhuk entered the world of NFTs when she minted Dualism — a piece depicting a person seated in a watery setting and evoking Rodin’s The Thinker — on Basis. Shortly after, the piece was purchased by NorCal Man, a collector recognized for serving to shine a highlight on up-and-coming artists in Web3 by amassing their work.
“I discovered in regards to the NFT house from the information, and it immediately received my consideration,” Zhuk defined whereas chatting with nft now. “I cherished the concept of an area the place you possibly can current your work to a large inventive viewers. My first step was the Basis platform, the place I used to be fortunate sufficient to fulfill a collector who appreciated my work. All people is aware of Norcal Man! I’m very completely happy to be part of this house.”
Since that sale, Zhuk has persistently engaged with the neighborhood, placing out one mesmerizing piece after one other. Amid a bear market, Zhuk’s 1/1s often promote for 15-20 ETH, numbers that appear to defy the gravity of present developments.
A contemporary lens on custom
As Zhuk comes from a protracted line of classically-trained artists, she has a pure curiosity in combining these traditions together with her up to date imaginative and prescient, a mode she describes as “fashionable with a classical method.”
“Any viewer can attempt [my characters] on themselves with a view to really feel the ambiance and feelings that I need to convey by means of the canvas.”
Zhuk
“My artwork isn’t targeted on the human physique specifically, no matter whether or not it’s feminine or male,” Zhuk mentioned of her work. “The picture of a personality in my works is just a human kind, which any viewer can attempt on themselves with a view to really feel the ambiance and feelings that I need to convey by means of the canvas. I depict bare our bodies as a result of that is how we come into this world, bare and within the water, which I additionally use in my works. Thus, I attempt to take away your entire materials and on a regular basis layer of our life, leaving nothing else however pure emotions.”
Zhuk’s NFT drops usually revolve round historical themes, a conceptual lean maybe most evident in The Seven Virtues and The Three Graces collections, which deal within the ideas and ethics of historical Greek mythology.
“Advantage promotes the enhancement of the human individual past what has been imposed upon us by societal requirements, dominant ideologies, and our personal wounds,” Zhuk mentioned of the thematic grounding of those tasks. “Advantage teaches us that we should assume, act, and converse based mostly on ethical ideas, not based mostly on how society or the media tells us to.”
Zhuk’s plans for the subsequent yr are as formidable as anybody’s and embody aspirations to collaborate with artists within the house, promote her work at Christie’s, and construct a private model through which her artwork will “lengthen far past the canvas.” And after that? “Have just a bit relaxation,” Zhuk says. It’s not a foul plan; in spite of everything, she’s earned it.
Need extra NFT100 honoree interviews? Get the full record of everybody we spoke with right here.