Written in Partnership with Amir BakianIn homage to her inspirator Salvador Dali, artist Tal Kadosh prepares to launch her first NFT collection.
Everything | The Dreams Collection 2022 © Tal Kadosh
Becoming An Artist
Tal Kadosh was gifted with a unique artistic talent in abstract art form and is now poised to bring her talents to the digital world. Kadosh, a lifelong resident of Tel Aviv, has over the past years shifted from traditional painting to digital. You can find many of her works on her Instagram page. Before dedicating her life to art, she managed studio design for many of the leading advertising agencies. The reason that made her engage in art lies in childhood trauma. As an overweight girl, she went through a tough adolescence that included a long boycott and social alienation. To deal with those difficult moments, Kadosh secluded herself in dark corners and, using pages and colors, began to create her imaginary world. At age 10 during a trip to Spain, she discovered Salvador Dali’s abstract concepts and was hooked. It was the escape from the brutal reality that made her find bright spots that made her life bearable. In the loneliness, she found her unique voice, discovered strengths in herself, and pushed herself to self-expression. “Art is an inseparable part of who I am.” Sometimes she did not choose to be an artist, but that art chose her. For her, art is more than a way to express herself; It’s a way to fix the world and make it possible.
The NFT Collection
Today, Kadosh is working on the launch of her first NFT collection. She only heard about blockchain technology about two years ago. However, her choice to enter the world of NFT was almost inevitable. She is known as a social anarchist and has a sharp social critique of giant corporations and the ruling capital relations of those in power. “About two years ago, I happened to encounter a young student in Vienna who explained the concept of decentralization; the potential of having a reality without controlling the power structures fascinated me.” The web 3 community fit her like a glove, and she decided to abandon her job at the advertising agency where she worked and engage in art that would combine distributed technology and collaboration of community members.
–Botticelli X Kadosh | The remake Collection 2020 © Tal Kadosh
Kadosh’s first public foray into the WEB 3 space is the Mud Squad, a project launching in March 2023. Mud Squad is a unique hand-drawn NFT project. It’s built on the Cardano platform and focuses on the connection between art and technology and the power of the community to bring about change through collaborations. The community members exposed to a new creation daily react with enthusiasm and anticipation for the upcoming launch. The works focus on a rather abstract figure with many faces and contrasting human edges that are unclear whether they are sweet or violent.
In her portrait, the most basic and oldest genre in art, Kadosh breathes life into her figures and emphasizes how complex and fluid humanity is. “I produce a portrait that conveys to the viewer that human identity is much more dynamic and fluid than it appears,” she says. Her work allows her to express her human identity and expand her possibilities. She approaches portraits from a fluid perspective: who we are, who we were, and the potential of what we can be.
Art from the MudSquad Collection 2023 © Tal Kadosh
Medium of Digital Art
Digital art is a medium that allows artists to experiment with new forms of expression and create works that are not possible in traditional media. For Kadosh, the potential of digital art is even more significant. “The advantage of digital art is that even what seems illogical can be made logical, such as creating harmony between the need for self-expression and social acceptance.” Her artworks are loaded with contrasting elements and represent unclear linearity between past, future, and present, between dream and reality. She is not limited by any thinking patterns and is consistently looking for the best way to interpret her ideas about herself, the environment, and the world. Her inspiration changes rapidly, just as the world changes. “We don’t always have mental access to this pool of possibilities – but art does.”
Inspiration and art style
Pop culture and a Dali perspective of reality influenced Kadosh’s artworks. She deliberately blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination; Sometimes, it seems like a reminder that it’s always possible to make a change and that we don’t have to accept reality for granted. Her artwork is full of contradictions: on the one hand, it presents a dark and complex world; On the other hand, it looks bright and friendly. The pastel colors in her artworks produce discomfort and harmonic feeling. Kadosh strives to soften these dark places and does not try to hide them simultaneously. “If a viewer stops for just one minute to watch and reflect on my work, my art fulfilled its purpose,”.
Mars Gothic | The remake Collection 2020 © Tal Kadosh
What Is Next?
As part of her journey, Kadosh conducts lectures and workshops dealing with digital art and inspires her students the urge to face their dark places and create personal and social change through art. She is constantly looking for new ways to challenge the traditional concepts of what is considered art and inspire others to think differently about reality as they know it. These days she is researching new technologies, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, that will allow her audience to experience her art from an interactive point of view. In 2024, she plans to exhibit in two museums. One is the Ars Electronica Center in Austria, and the other is the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Germany. Her passion is to allow visitors to immerse themselves in her imaginary digital world and to gain a deeper understanding of their nature as human beings. “The new art performance will be interactive and create a thought-provoking sensory experience for the participants.”
As a Metaverse enthusiast, she is excited about the possibility of creating in the virtual reality world and further blurring the line between imagination and reality. She dreams of collaborating with other companies and artists to produce parallel universes within the Metaverse. The Cardano community has warmly embraced her artistic style and has made her feel very much at home. “My Cardano friends made me realize how much power the community has and how vital my audience is to me.” Her vision now is to plan a live joint venture of art that will be created with her audience.
The border | The Dreams Collection 2022 © Tal Kadosh
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