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 during the last yr, injecting a digital-heavy NFT area with some refreshingly historic aesthetics. A 3rd-generation household artist, Zhuk brings a uniquely trendy lens to classical figurative portray, typically depicting the human physique as if suspended in water or considered in a dreamy, flow-like state. This strategy 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 greatest names within the area (together with Cozomo de Medici), and featured at legacy public sale home 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 area, and the way she’s constructing a Web3 model to succeed in past the partitions of her canvas portray.
A sluggish and regular rise
In April 2021, Zhuk entered the world of NFTs when she minted Dualism — a bit 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 identified for serving to shine a highlight on up-and-coming artists in Web3 by amassing their work.
“I discovered in regards to the NFT area from the information, and it immediately received my consideration,” Zhuk defined whereas talking to nft now. “I cherished the concept of an area the place you’ll be able to current your work to a large inventive viewers. My first step was the Basis platform, the place I used to be fortunate sufficient to satisfy a collector who appreciated my work. Everyone is aware of Norcal Man! I’m very comfortable to be part of this area.”
Since that sale, Zhuk has persistently engaged with the group, placing out one mesmerizing piece after one other. Amid a bear market, Zhuk’s 1/1s usually 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 along with her modern imaginative and prescient, a method she describes as “trendy with a classical strategy.”
“Any viewer can strive [my characters] on themselves with a purpose to really feel the environment and feelings that I wish to convey via the canvas.”
Zhuk
“My artwork just isn’t centered on the human physique particularly, no matter whether or not it’s feminine or male,” Zhuk mentioned of her work. “The picture of a personality in my works is barely a human type, which any viewer can strive on themselves with a purpose to really feel the environment and feelings that I wish to convey via 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 typically revolve round historic themes, a conceptual lean maybe most evident in The Seven Virtues and The Three Graces collections, which deal within the rules and ethics of historic 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 initiatives. “Advantage teaches us that we should suppose, act, and converse primarily based on ethical rules, not primarily based 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 area, 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 nasty plan; in any case, she’s earned it.
Need extra NFT100 honoree interviews? Get the full checklist of everybody we spoke with right here.
