Aesthetic, now that is a word that is underused and possibly not fully understood. What is Aesthetic? Well, we can define it as; “concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.” But what does that really tell us? Not a whole lot. We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder why would concept of Aesthetic be any different. It’s not but within this word we find a deeper meaning Aesthetic in the sense that it is pleasing to the eye this basic interpretation is something that is easy to find in vaporwave style. Today’s artist Shaolin Shoppe finds his roots in the Vaporwave community, While the vaporwave style of music certainly is one that can be interpreted and is maybe what one would call an acquired taste.
The style that accompanies it is something that everyone can agree fills the definition of aesthetic in a pure and unnegotiable way. In Shaolin’s work we find perfect colour matching displaying a keen eye for well, the aesthetic. But more than that we experience the feeling of familiarity, nostalgia is you will. The motives of vaporwave are just that pure nostalgia, 90s, VHS all that good stuff. High gloss, colours, iconography, busts, and beauty. These are the main elements that we can relate to Shaolin’s work. A paradise lost the perfect storm of the American experiment captured in perfect, well aesthetic. https://mybae.io/profiles/shaolin%20shoppe
How did you get into art
visual art? Literally because vaporwave. When I first started listening to it one of the things that first attracted my attention was the sometimes jaw-dropping, sometimes eye-watering but always fascinating album art. I said to myself, "I want to make shit like that" so I did, and as these things tend to go I got more diverse in style as I learned and as other art influenced me, experimenting with glitch and exploring outside traditional vaporwave subject matter and color palettes
What/who are your influences the internet
Why the name shaolin shoppe I think it has a nice ring to it most importantly, and besides that I like kung fu movies and wu tang clan, hence the first half, and the latter half is a nod to the classic vaporwave album FLORAL SHOPPE which is also where I picked up the bust of Helios that is the central element of my crest/logo/whatever you'd call it.
How did you come Into crypto through cryptoart. I'm really not so much a "cryptoartist" as I am an artist that uses crypto as a platform/medium to get exposure for my art, although as I've become more entrenched in the world of cryptoart I've obviously become more and more interested in the crypto half of the equation. Still a complete layman compared to most of the scene though.
What are the main themes of your work first and foremost is a e s t h e t i c
What is your process mind-altering substances, GIMP, and a lot of trial and error
How did you get into crypto art Thanks to ROBNESS, or BEEF as I still think of him (he used to go by the handle groundBEEFtaxi) who brought it to my attention talking about it in a little vaporwave-themed telegram chat he owns and where I first met him. He posted a link to a cryptoartist chatroom, I joined up cause the idea of getting money for something I'd be doing anyway, yadda yadda yadda, and here I am
Any advice for new artists don't make shitty art