DeLorean Protocol Artist Spotlight: Clintxvx
Ever since he was a young child, Clintxvx has been drawn to art.
Starting out with painting and analog pieces, he found himself through Brazilian street art, or pixação as it is known in his home town of São Paulo, and has since found the courage to quit his day job working as an art director to focus solely on his own projects.
Clintxvx has developed his own unique style of digital art and in recent times has started turning his pieces into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including some stunning mixed media collages like this exclusive piece for the DeLorean Protocol which will be auctioned off on messier.art on March 3.
The DeLorean Protocol sat down with Clintxvx to talk about his philosophy as an artist and learn more about his journey from the streets of Brazil to the digital space and the world of NFTs.
Q: Your Discord server and your Instagram are named (UN)SEEN — what is the significance of this name?
A: It represents the essence of my thoughts. My religion, musical taste, sexual preference shouldn’t get between me and the person viewing my artwork. The focus for the observer should be solely on my art and not on how they view me as an artist.
I want my art to be seen all over the world – not myself, or details of my personal life. I’m on the streets, I’m in galleries, I’m on the trash of the corner tag, I’m on the club toilet, I’m on the blockchain, I’m everywhere — being seen without being seen.
Q: How long have you been an artist for and is this your fulltime occupation?
A: Some people would say since I was born, but according to my memories, since I was a little kid I spent most of my time painting everything. I remember having to stay late at school every single day cleaning the desks.
I went to Design college and worked for years as an art director for agencies and on events, but I was always creating my own art in my spare time. I started attracting interest from people wanting to purchase them and that gave me courage to think that I could live purely off my art.
So about a year and a half ago, six months before I had even heard about NFTs, I quit my well-paying job to start focusing on my own projects. There are a lot of people that come to be looking for freelance work, but nowadays I try to choose only projects that really touch my heart to create pieces for.
Q: How would you describe your art style and the type of piece you have done for the DeLorean Protocol?
A: If I had to define it, I think I’d call it a ‘Surreal Puzzle’, but I don’t usually specify a style — it’s a mixed media collage with illustration and typography.
Most of my art is created freestyle – a lot of things change through the process. Just like with this ‘TIMELESS’ piece, all I‘ve got to do is sit down and start doing the fun part, it seems that the pieces start to fit like a glove until it becomes a total new construction made by deconstructions of my vision of the world.
Q: How has your art style has evolved over time and arrived at these collages?
A: I always loved the look of the collages, but when I started creating my analog pieces, they were missing a lot of elements that could only be done with digital tools.
So I started doing a mixture of analog and digital collages and letting the freestyle define how I could get the results I want. I came up with the faces because I’m a huge movie and music fan, and a lot of characters inspired me to create, so I started doing tributes to them.
With time, and feedback from people saying this is really unique, I realized that this was the authorial style that I was always looking for – a way to mix all the styles present in my ecosystem as an artist.
Q: In addition to digital art, you are also part of the graffiti movement in Brazil — how did you get involved in this?
A: It was hard at the beginning, since I was 12 years old I was already running from the police, which was a big problem for my parents, but nowadays they realize that this was fundamental to my own growth as an artist.
Going to the streets showed me a whole unseen world that changed my life forever. Graffiti and pixação were literally responsible for my introduction to the art world.
This pixação scene in Brazil is my biggest inspiration, and while most people complain about it as a vandalism, I see it as an open-air museum with new pieces being born everyday and I push myself to read all the different letters and drawings.
We don’t care if you can read it, we don’t care if you like it, we don’t care if you know who we are – we do this because the paint runs in our veins, we do this because that’s what makes us feel alive and free.
Q: What would you say to people who call this vandalism?
A: Vandalism is what politicians do to our nation – letting people die starving while they fill their pockets. I remember kids complaining about some classic artworks being ugly in art history classes, and the teacher saying ‘it’s art’.
I never understood why people judge artistic expression differently depending on whether it’s in a museum or the streets, but the movement doesn’t care what others think – if you don’t open your mind to see it with a different perspective, the problem is your concern, not ours.
Q: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
A: The street movements and the nature. For me, the nature is the perfect ‘project’, it has everything it needs to be complete – it’s the biggest example of harmony.
How things fit, how things work together, how things evolve. One of the things that most amazes me is that not everything is what it seems. Most of my artwork can give you the impression that is about something good, but in the same instance it can also be about something terrible, and vice-versa.
Q: Are there any artists that inspire you — in the NFT space, or outside of it?
A: I’ve always been inspired by Obey the Giant, Basquiat, Keith Haring, Banksy and all the street writers.
In the NFT space there are amazing artists too, but X COPY is one that really inspired me to create something I never created, gif arts. I love his style and really opened my mind.
Q: How did you get involved in the NFT space?
A: It was kind of funny. My former boss (from the job which I quite to focus solely on making a living as an artist) saw the news of the Nyan Cat sale, and send me a message on Whatsapp saying “Bro, you’re going to be the biggest billionaire on earth, study this shit!”.
I was hungover that Sunday, but I jumped out of bed and to learn more about it. At the time, I had never used Twitter or Discord and didn’t know a thing about cryptocurrency, MetaMask or NFTs. But I remember going for about a week without sleeping, almost freaking out about this whole new world.
The rest is history…
Q: What has your experience of creating NFTs been like, on Terra and other blockchains?
A: Most of my sales so far have been on Ethereum, which is where I started out with NFTs, but I have also worked with some pieces on Tezos and done a special drop on crypto.com.
I’m still kind of new to the Terra ecosystem, but the community has been amazing since the first day. I think that beyond all the great people — what touches me most is to have that feeling of beginning again.
The most important thing I learned in this new world when I arrived to ETH, was that it was all about community, however, over time it seems that this got kind of lost.
People work really hard on Terra and it seems they really want to build something good – for me it’s like a “filtered community’’ without all the craziness that we have in ETH, with huge scams and bad people and everyone forgetting about the community and just trying to take their slice of the pie and leave forever.
I finished 2021 with two 1/1 auctions on Talis Protocol – they were my genesis drops on the Terra blockchain and it was an amazing experience.
Both were animated, one inspired on the blockchain itself represented by ‘Captain Luna’, and the other inspired on the Angel Protocol, represented by a Angel nurse.
Both sold to a guy that has been very important in my journey here – Finntern, from Terraspaces – none of this would have happened without the support from him and my friend Myr since the beginning.
I really hope that Terra stays this way and doesn’t get affected by the problems the ETH community got. I see it like another planet – with less people, but more filtered. If we keep on this path, we have everything we need to be the biggest community, but it’s important to keep our roots grounded.
Q: You have also done some physical exhibitions of your work — can you share some details about these?
A: Physical pieces are a big part of my ecosystem as an artist. I already had great solo exhibitions in Brazil and was part of galleries as an artist.
I do lot of commissions too, but I’ve never minted a physical piece on the blockchain, which is one of the next steps coming soon. I have created pieces with mixed media collage and paints, but I do a lot of customization too – anything can be transformed into art.
Q: You’ve done some work for companies in the commercial world. How have you found these collaborations?
A: I loved creating art for these projects, but the difference is that usually they have a restrictive briefing to follow, which forces me to deviate from the freestyle way that I usually create.
I’ve created everything that you can imagine – cards, shapes, promo kits, clothings, and even art for live TV events. This was the good part of working in the design area for years – it turned me into a complete designer, beyond being an artist with an authorial style.
I can work on any project involving visual communication with excellence too. Unfortunately, I see that a lot of artists don’t have this knowledge – they’re ‘only artists‘, which gives them less options to create bigger projects.
Q: You have collaborated with a big Brazilian rapper Krawk. How did this come about?
A: This was some of my most important work as Krawk is one of the biggest rappers in Brazil, with huge numbers on social media, Spotify, Youtube, etc.
This job materialized about a week after I left my fulltime job, so I took it as a signal that I made the right decision.
I’ve created the full album cover with animated versions too and all the merchandise for the project launch. Working on this project was a blast and opened a lot of doors in the music industry for me, where I continue to create commissions, right up until today.
Q: Why did you choose to collaborate with the DeLorean Protocol?
A: MYR is an amazing person and friend, and he told me good things about you, so I knew you were good for real.
I have a lot of invites for collaborations, but a lot of them doesn’t really push to make it something good, they just want to have my art linked with their name.
When I realized the Delorean’s crew was as excited as I was, and they do a great work on the community and their projects, I knew you were the right guys to do this, and I was right.
Q: Where can we learn more about you and the details of your DeLorean Protocol collaboration?
A: You can find me on Twitter, on Instagram or join my Discord server. Here is also a link to all my NFT work.
In terms of the DeLorean Protocol drop, that piece will be auctioned on messier.art on March 3. Stay tuned to my socials and the DeLorean Protocol’s Twitter for more details or support them by joining their Discord server.
Q: One final question. Do you own any NFTs on Terra and what do you look for when choosing to buy art?
A: I still haven’t collected anything on Terra … yet. I’m not a big collector (at least until I make more money) but I own some NFT pieces. Part of them were investment on blue chips, like Deadfellaz for example, and the others were art from friends and artists I like.
I think that the most important thing is to you identify with the art, to really like it, because it can stay with you forever.
