Dare to not know what you are - Rik Oostenbroek

0:08Rik Oostenbroek:The way he always approached life or work, he was very much a believer of like once he was too comfortable with something, he moved on and he did something totally else. And money was never his motivation to do that. And that's something he always preached for. make it fun like you only have live one life and make sure it's fun don't drag yourself into repeating yourself too much for clients or like just just stick close to your core and that's what he did he started with graffiti like that was his first personal creative expression and he went back to it like his last two years he spent doing that and they're gonna release a book pieces of his that he photographed himself he also took that very serious

0:57welcome to the daring creativity podcast the show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection it's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count it's about becoming more of who you already are My name is Rajen Malinic. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that spark lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:48Today I'm speaking with Rick Ostenbroek, a Dutch visual artist and a lifelong creative explorer who has spent over two decades building a singular body of work. Rick has always been guided by the curiosity of his 14-year-old self. His career spans major brand commissions and gallery exhibitions, a celebrated place in the early internet art community and a pivotal chapter in the NFT movement. yet through every shift rick has remained stubbornly beautifully himself in this conversation we explore what it means to protect your creative identity over a long career why mystery in art matters more than ever and how the loss of a dear friend became the push to finally get his hands dirty it's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with rick ostenbroke

2:44Hey, Rick. It's great to see you today. How are you doing? Hey, Radim. Thank you so much for having me.

2:50Rik Oostenbroek:I'm good. Surviving two small kids. Brand new studio. Exciting times. New year, new energy. Experimenting with tons of new mediums, as we should in this time, I think. So, yeah, excited. I like the dissonance, like surviving two young kids, but a lot of energy. rake you and i would like to dedicate this episode to our friend rud palooza who sadly left this planet way too early way too talented way too of an amazing person i just appreciate this opportunity that you and i can and i'll briefly talk about him later about who he was and how amazing and how important he was to us but i want to dedicate the episode to him because it's it's it's a tragedy what happened too young too early to everything because his talent was bigger than life it's great to have you here and obviously we'll talk about him in a second but for those who may have not heard of you or what you do how would you introduce yourself oh that's always a challenging thing people always put different stamps on me like rick is an illustrator rick is a graphic designer rick is an artist even i always find it a bit hard so i try to keep it as broad as possible these days where i'm always working with visuals so visual artists might sound quite posh maybe a little bit too posh for me i think it sort of makes sense these days as i'm traveling through different mediums exploring form and color and that could be from animation to simple branding things so whatever is visual i love it and i love to work with it i've known your journey for the last i'm trying to count because you and i met in 2012 in person but i've been aware of you for many years prior and you're one of the people who has not only weathered the changes in the industry for the last let's say 20 years but you're also one of the people who stood his own ground and lived your singular way of creativity because you do as i call it rick does rick things you do your own explorations because i know that just like many other digital artists in the late 2000s and early 2010s there was the push and pull of commercial work and kind of being a digital illustrator and creating campaigns for anyone and everyone but that's what you did for a while but then you decided to be like this is what i'm going to do i'm going to do my own things in my own way and that's valuable because you've shown so many people that being you being the person that you're meant to be it is that expression of daring creativity because i always happy and always celebrating in a way when I see your next piece I was like okay Rick is still doing rigged things and that's what really matters so how would you describe your journey from that early young digital designer digital illustrator all the way to where you are now it all started as a 40 year old inspired by people like you actually sitting on deviant art I never know how to pronounce it and the energy I got there from like seeing something I was curious about I didn't know what I was looking at, looking at your work, looking at Chuck Anderson, Josh Davis.

5:57Rik Oostenbroek:I know it was something I couldn't grasp like what it was and I was inspired by it. And that sort of curiosity, exploring through the digital software and trying to figure out my own language, I really tried to maintain that energy. And of course there have been tons of moments where I was tired of it, where I wanted to give up, but I always kept on looking for those new ways of staying curious basically and putting myself somewhere. I had to learn and I had to force myself into new ways of expressing myself and that kept me hungry in a way. It's also been scary at points where either like the financial reward wasn't that big.

6:36Rik Oostenbroek:That's always a juggle. You need to make some money but you also need to keep yourself happy and most of the times those things don't really align. You've probably been through that yourself as well. It's been a constant juggle but I always try to maintain that energy from the 14 year old rig where i was simply being curious and wanted to explore new ways of expressing myself i love it 14 year old rig is still guiding a rig with two kids and survival today oh man yeah i love it and thanks for the name check i think we were so lucky that what was happening in that sort of 2000s could just put a whole decade on it it was time like no other because not only like we were inspiring one another we also became friends we became a community like we had almost at this corner of the internet we just felt so connected and so passionate because we were doing a similar thing we felt like we've got our own horse in a race doing our things in parallel to one another and even though there were overlaps no one felt too frightened or too too threatened in a way by anyone else's work i think those friendships never go away because we've been in it together and we are still together in this i've really value this because now wherever you go in the world there's somebody somewhere from that time and you go hey the things have moved on right those times were valuable super intimate it was also quite a compact scene i think and it was beautiful it was cozy we tend to meet at festivals like our festival fitc you had those were the gatherings and i always remember that i returned at home so inspired by finding those like-minded idiots that had the same passion.

8:16Rik Oostenbroek:I always felt quite alone in my small little town and those events and especially also the online friendships you've made along the way became very valuable friendships and as valuable as your real life friendships at times. It's interesting when you said feeling alone in my town in a way that the global community online is kind of is the window to the world. Is that one way of keeping the 14 your own rig energy plugged in into the world and keeping you going would you say that yeah my real life friends always make fun of me that i tend to do more with my internet friends that i always try to avoid the friend weekends with my real life friends and whenever there's an internet friend doing your wedding like i can travel the whole world for it and yeah valuable friendships have been made that way and i still think you're quite funerable being an artist and not everybody understands you at times what you're going through what you're thinking is what your process is like people look at me yeah rick is making easy money blah blah working for those big clients but i just needed somebody to bounce ideas with and i always found that online with my online homies a little bit easier than here i'm in a smaller town close to Amsterdam and they're simply not someone here doing whatever i do and let alone like understanding it and every time like every birthday or whatever gathering I had to explain.

9:38Rik Oostenbroek:Hey, I do this. I create images for a living. It seems like a particularly looking thing. You create memes? I'm like, okay. That kind of vibe. That was especially when I went to my first off and I met from the friends of Defcor. I don't know if she knew that, like community run by Justin Meller and Meller Moller. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Meeting those guys for the first time in real life was like magical. It was so cool. I think when you describe it, I think the medium of the creativity, that expression, that output of like, how to express yourself, because I think we were at the beautiful nexus that what we were doing digitally is what people were doing almost physically, creatively, let's say, a decade prior.

10:21But we had this beautiful alignment in time where the technology was in the right place, the curiosity was in the right place, the resources, the stock imagery, everything, it was coming together that we can do things a lot and quickly. You can turbocharge the career so quickly. I remember doing not only client work, but I was doing like a piece a day for myself. I was like, I need to do this. I need to push myself because we were in a league of our own together. Like, hey, what is possible? What can we do? And of course, you see an idea from somebody else. You're like, I'm going to borrow that, but I'm going to make it my own.

10:54I'm going to twist it. I'm going to make it in a way that actually they can go back into the cycle and inspire other people. because when you say the word understanding, it's interesting that you have that problem explaining yourself to your friends, but to the world online, it almost isn't necessary at all, is it? Because you can do, especially in your case, you can get the work to talk for itself.

11:17Rik Oostenbroek:Yeah, it's weird. It's quite convenient as well to wind down from work. I do it on a purpose. I don't discuss any work-related things with my real-life friends, and my real life is quite separate, apart from cute photos from my kids. I love to share that because I'm simply so proud of them. But my personal life is quite not visible online. I tend to separate those things and somehow it works for me, especially before COVID. It also really worked for me that I live in this small town and clients just flew me over the world. I got to speak on conferences. So that was all like, it's always finding a balance.

11:52Rik Oostenbroek:For me, this still works. And sometimes I just plan on convenience to just play video games and not talk about art for a second because I'm indulged in it, especially because I'm still as passionate as this 40-year-old was. But then it could be so nice to drink a beer, play some Rocket League with a friend and like one television together and just talk shit and not have to worry about poker. What do you describe it? I think it's a proper work-life balance because some people personally, I don't think ever stop thinking about it. I mean, not that I discuss too much with many people that you're showing up in conversation events and stuff and you're almost kind of plugged into it And you can't ever tell your brain not to think about something.

12:28We can't control our thoughts. We just need to let them pass through. What you're describing, I think, is an interesting way because some people might be thinking like, hey, I wish I had friends that are more in tune with what I do and they care and whatever. But you don't need that validation because, as you just said, you know what? It's actually nice to just talk about it because what I believe, what we've created in the last 20 odd years, created so much noise in the world that the online space wasn't as busy and i sound like a granddad telling it or not telling this on my podcast for so often because there's so many places to meet there's so many subsets too many sort of sub platforms and all those spaces where people were lucky there was a fewer of them and that's actually that the connection was strong but with the way obviously like where it is now you can have your little pockets you can have your micro communities.

13:16It just might be that sometimes we find it harder to meet new people just to say this is who I am, this is what I do because you can't be in older places all the time. We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Co, the first creative speciality comfy company building a platform to shine a light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond. Lux Coffee Co. offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins, coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel at luxcoffee.co.uk.

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14:15Rik Oostenbroek:how do you feel about the fact that there were no tutorials back then online that we actually needed to have a conversation to actually ask okay bro i love what you did there how did she do it i still remember asking i think it was pete harrison the wire style guy i don't know if you remember him hey bro this effect is dope and he was like yeah this displacement layer your photoshop there were not many resources and way more space for a conversation a proper connection being made And right now there is almost no conversation needed online. I feel like everything can be found either on YouTube.

14:47Rik Oostenbroek:If you want to do a tutorial or you ask ChatGPT, like, hey, how has this been achieved? And I sometimes miss that, especially what I just mentioned about my online friends and my offline friends. I have to say I still meet new offline friends because that happens in real life. But online friends getting less and less. And it's not that I spend less time online. There's just way less people looking for a conversation these days, I feel. That's a really interesting observation because answering your first part of the question, the tutorials, that was the magic. That was the magic of like, what did you do?

15:22Because you know those people are using the same tools. Like, what did you do? How did you do this? And it did feel a little bit like this sort of gentle race in a way of like, I need to find out. I need to do this. I need to surprise people. we put so much care into this and i guess we were not busy checking every platform every 15 minutes because anyone like this has this i think we were more focused on the work and i think there was an aura of mystery a little bit because i think the things we were creating took a lot of time and work to create recreate not only are trying to get technically better but you were also trying to get conceptually better like you were trying to progress like what do you do with this and i think there was this element of like how can i do this it was quite a time in a way that whatever you wanted to do you need to find out and then we started creating tutorials creating stuff for other people i think that was a good way of learning i think because it's even though i remember writing tutorials for print and they were like they were important because you can find it it's printed and it's got longevity to it and i think now the options have grown so vast that you can be anything and anyone so quickly that you'd almost don't belong to certain category of people like i think i would find it potentially harder to find my expression if i was 20 years old now because the world is a disneyland and it can be anything and anyone and actually to really double down on what you feel like you should be i potentially might be harder i mean i've got nearly a 10 year old girl in a house and a six year old boy will find out in five or six years time whether who they want to be but it's like where it pulls them because you can be anything So yeah, what you described it, I think, was that camaraderie because the person you reached out to for that tutorial tape or that hack was at exactly the same place.

17:07It was like, hey, I can tell you my secret and you tell me yours. And I think that was the part when I'm sure you remember like trading PSD files and like, oh, you use this and you use that. And I was like, how do you do this? Because we were learning in real time. And I think that's what strengthened the community because we were actually just happy to share. Yeah. yeah but through that i actually learned that people named their layers i was like holy shit i worked with hello color oh and i remember we did a collaboration i've learned so many things like how we did like a color adjustments and that kind of stuff but i was a butcher i was literally like tapping the keyboard like a pianist like doing things fast and doing it sort of intuitively and he was like sending the file back and it's like what'd you do it like i'm sorry you know not only i did it really quickly but maybe i have been also half drunk because it was the Yeah, yeah.

17:54Rik Oostenbroek:But do those still, those things still happen where like two artists general, one PSD. I haven't seen it in quite a while. Also, I haven't done it in quite a bit, but it was quite common back then where it was like, yeah, let's do a collaboration together. And it was always clumsy. It never worked out the way it was. Because the way others work was just so hard for me to understand like how they build up their files. Yeah, I think it just brings up really lots of good memories. You know what? It happened and you got denied and it made us feel something. Totally. talk about your career progression because through these tutorials you carry in your 14 year old rick energy into everything you tried your hand in so many different ways and styles always been beautifully colorful but what was that discovery for you when you realized that doing i think you were like 17 when you did one of your first commercial projects right that's that's that's young and early yeah how did you navigate that space before you found who you wanted to be oh man there was also no social media back then so so you had to be quite lucky to be found by clients right i have no clue how they found me it was all like you needed your personal portfolios or your own url and that was your showcase of what you were capable of beside divin guard but divin guard was more like an alternative shithole you could find whatever there i don't know i was young i was never too ambitious i never intended it to be my profession right i just started to do it because i like doing it and it all went so organically from there where i never had to force myself into like hitting people up or whatever the emails always came my way by whatever i've been expressing online so whatever i posted somehow connected with someone who decided to send me an email and the first gig was for volkswagen i've done party flyers before for like hockey parties where i got like three booths all night and in exchange and stuff like that my first real gig was for volkswagen at the age of 17 and then an agent in amsterdam contacted me and brought me more gigs like mazda benisonic puma and those kind of brands and i sort of grew into that and And I got too comfortable to sue, I think.

20:08Rik Oostenbroek:I also worked at Sidley. That's when we met, actually, when I was living in Montreal. And it was very stock imagery-focused work. I don't even know how to call it. It started special effects, masking your way through Photoshop with some pixie dust, they used to call it, some magic gloves. And it was very Photoshop-y. And in Montreal was quite the moment where I was like, okay, this is not what I want to do. I was really ambitious. like hey i want to be the con lion blah blah blah like that was my ambition when entering the advertising world but sooner or later i didn't really like executing art director's briefs you basically got a sketch back in those days and you had to find corresponding photographs and on i stock photos shunner stock or whatever stock website was there sometimes the client had a nice budget so i did a sheet for you so you kind of could direct that which was cool but it was always never felt me enough.

21:04Rik Oostenbroek:And it was also quite far out as that 40 year old kid and somehow realized that I always wanted to maintain that energy around those days where I was like, okay, this is so far out why I started to do this. So that's when I started to, when social media came up and Behance started to come up and I really started to, to focus more on my own stuff instead of making money. I was still living at my parents' place. So that was quite convenient back then. So my cost of living was basically not much. I was going to a pub and buy a split in a coffee shop, but that was it. And so I got to explore in more of my abstract ways back in the day, still without tutorials, trying to find my own language and started to post that online.

21:49Rik Oostenbroek:And I think it took two years until some clients really vibed with it because it was too abstract at first. And I was like, okay, I really like doing this, but there's no way to monetize it because they don't understand it, right? Like sometimes you need to put stuff in perspective for people to understand it. And especially to send my real friends to understand it, whatever I do, they need to see it in some sort of context they're familiar with. If I showed him like an abstract gradient, they're like, yeah, Rick, this is just a grain if I turn it to a landscape with a horizon, they're like, oh my God, Rick, this is a beautiful landscape.

22:22Rik Oostenbroek:See what I mean? And that's what I did with my abstract work where I tried to give it more like an illustrative twist i tried to discover 3d and blended like my actual shape with topography and that was the moment where i was like hey this is cool and people started to hit me up for something that still failed me and where i could make money with so that was juggling the balance how does it work out and how am i being happy there's so much what you just said but it reminds me of when you said okay i didn't know where people came from again that timing was so perfect the mood and the art direction was so great for what we were creating because the brand stepped into what we had on offer the skill the talent and got us to be part of the campaigns because when you fast forward it 20 years on we get artists attached to a campaign but more than often now the landscape has changed when you got influences with a certain amount of following and they're there because they've created following so the brands are happy to put their name to the campaign whereas we would be creating these mad things you would never have like hey mazda versus rick ostenbrook like we were just a talent not hidden behind the scenes and now the things have changed and i think it's just a natural evolution of of how things are happening but i remember when you said we had a website it was i think secret showcase is that right yeah yeah you had a website sounds so weird though the beauty of this was that was the only point of call like you were online and people would go into google and say like i'm looking for an illustrator i'm looking for a digital artist the sequence of events was much shorter because the work would show up in small fewer places and to find someone you know you would go and actually google and find a website and what was really interesting looking at it back like i had a website which was getting like one one to two million hits a year because that was the only place you're thinking this is incredible and you were checking people's websites almost on a daily basis in case they bring something new but then other media showed up and it's like okay let's put stuff there let's put stuff there and the traffic dilutes it and now we check your website traffic and it's obviously ai boards crawling for information it's just i get million hits every month but it's from ai boards and i'm like they just dig in for the same information so things have changed obviously we have to accept the change because it's also a vehicle for us to change our ways of creativity like how we can earn money how we can do because with the style that you've described like in a way of having the ability to do what you felt like doing actually express yourself not from the comfort of let's say your parents house that's an opportunity you will not get any time again you know like this is the development years and as i said at the top of the conversation the way you stack with it what you've done with it and being true and honest to yourself it's a testament that you can be the person you want to be because i'm sure when you look back it's liberating right did you imagine yourself doing anything different yeah i mean like i'm looking back at things a lot especially reflecting a lot in this time like at this age and this time like where we're at and the conditions the world is in the commission advertising and order in and reflecting back i think i've done quite well the only thing that i keep on thinking is have we been in the bubble that's sort of like what i've been thinking about a lot like you was it a bubble because we were so celebrate as digital creators and we were rewarded so badly and i wouldn't say like we didn't deserve it because we do great stuff but whenever i reflect right now i'm like oh my gosh there's opportunities were quite unreal like at the pace they were following each other up like i had blind ethic client i was invited to go here and then a week later i was invited to go there to work on this coupe i was featured in every sunglass hut worldwide and to me that was all normal right and right now it slows down a little bit for all of us i guess and i'm like that was actually quite cool so the only thing whenever i look back at whatever was happened and whatever i'm critical of towards myself is that i couldn't enjoy it more that it was too normal to me you know what i mean i do actually and it's very interesting i do know what you mean because i had a similar sentiment just the other day going through archives what i did with my studio with when i used to employ people when we used to literally produce so much work and not only like work with the studio with myself the things were moving fast you're doing things on the fly you're working our things and you're solving problems in real time and it took me like four or five years to realize what we were doing four or five years prior was actually good and we created amazing things the experiences were amazing but i think there is one advice i don't volunteer advice on this podcast but slow down and look back at what you've created before because oh my god we have this difference in number of clients that you would be taking on a number of clients i used to take on because i remember your talk in montreal where i think it was montreal when you said look i say no to 19 out of 20 opportunities and i was like i say yes to 19 out of 20 opportunities because i was saying yes to everything because i was trying to work out who what it was i didn't i didn't know as much as you did like what you wanted to do and fruit and melee it's a survival it's it's not it don't thrive you survive obviously you thrive professionally but as a person you just survive so i think in that way it's like looking back it seems sometimes so therapeutic and like you know what that was a good time and i hoped it'd be new it was a good time because it was just the norm that boiling frog you put him in a pan it's that you know boiling the frog doesn't know is getting hotter i mean not that it makes any sense in this comparison but yeah i'm sure you agree we were just doing too much too quickly too often yeah i don't know if that was even your question by the way when you'd be up for the podcast i was like okay what what should i cover but there are so many weird moments these days where i either reflect or look into the future i'm like what's to come which is exciting i'm quite excited i don't know if you're scared or whatever but it's such interesting times and i feel it's the same kind of time as before to me personally i was grinding finding my own style my parents bedroom like that's the moment where i'm at right now i just wonder like how it's going to roll out the years to come there's always a way of unknown in the current situation but i found that the best way to deal with it is just to be two steps ahead of what might be or what's coming and i kind of missed those days of creating elaborate pieces and pushing to brands and trying to reinvent the next style but my my world has moved on from picking up all of those pieces of experiences and actually bringing them together in different forms so i wouldn't think of doing this 20 years ago having a conversation with people or kind of growing on this or starting communities or writing books and doing that kind of stuff but it all came from that time when we were promoting ourselves we were trying to find a way it's kind of making sense of the world but in my case it's like i i'm thinking what what could be i'm not waiting for what might happen and come my way but i think what could be because there is a world out there that's invented by everyone some people take part in active way of shaping that world and some people just are the passengers being driven and it's usually the passengers who are being driven who are complaining about a lack of opportunities you have to step up and just put yourself out there i think you have never had easier access to tools you have never had access to being seen and promoted but would you agree is potentially diminished the way people can express themselves because as opposed to you know working out a tutorial how to become themselves it's easy to tap in into what's existing and use that as the expression first i think that was the beauty of the back in the days where everybody sort of had to educate themselves and found their unique path towards greatness but yeah i think it has something beautiful and and that's sort of like stuff became saturated especially with the 3d tutorials i feel where like like slick renders were so easy to bust out especially once octane and redshift where it became like the industry standards immediate feedback graceville gorilla was putting out like amazing tools like i learned a lot from those guys as well but it came so easy but yes i often miss the times where i'm looking around or looking at a piece of art and i'm like wow how did you do that for instance i have that when stumbling upon ruben has worked the first time i was like what what this is digital is it physical like what am i looking at and that feeling i always had when browsing like deviant art back in the days or like oh my god what trick did you do that what kind of software did you use And I'm always looking for those pieces that trigger those with a little bit of mystery, so to say.

31:18Rik Oostenbroek:And there's a little less mystery or there's just a lot of content that it's harder to find those mystery gems in there. It's just maybe a little bit harder to filter. But yeah, those moments, I still have them from time to time whenever I do scroll on whatever social media app. Wow, this person is talented as fuck. And it's so weird that sometimes those persons have like 150 ,000 followers and I only stumbled upon them like months later. And that's a little bit, maybe also the downside of the internet where back in the days we had like DeviantArt, then we had Behance. Dribbble was a little bit of a thing as well, although I always found it a little bit weird that you only upload in a very small specific ratio or resolution.

32:04Rik Oostenbroek:And then we had Instagram. So those were the visual diaries everybody was uploading their work to, and it was pretty easy to find. And right now there are so many platforms, and I'm not on TikTok, but probably there are magical artists on TikTok as well. Yeah, you got these bookies where, as we've established, it's all fragmented. So you need to kind of double down to one place and see who you might find. Because we find ourselves in this social media landscape that, why are we posting? Are we hoping that someone will find us? Are we there for community? Are we there for promotional marketing?

32:35because the question is, who's actually looking? Like, how do we know the behavior and the pathways of people who are commissioning this stuff? And is it even being commissioned? Because as we both know, it's actually much more beneficial to get ahead of the curve and actually build your own spaces and build your own opportunities and your visibility because that's where the difference happens. But I have never, even though I'm talking about opportunities, I want to talk about something that I haven't asked anyone in the last 100 plus episodes. you were part of the nft scene i would call it a scene or nft movement and i kind of want to know a little bit about it because i haven't had chance to talk to anyone about it and it was this this shake-up in the world where anyone all of a sudden became a crypto artist and i'm thinking wow how quickly will anyone abandon their values and morals in the way of cryptocurrency and being a crypto artist and again i'm not trying to be a derogatory to anyone in a way but it was this shift that kind of proven to everyone really quickly that unless you are established and you have something like you had though being established artists having your style and being singular you can find successes in this and lots of people find themselves within sort of six weeks talking about ai and everything else so what was it like for you when you discovered nft and how did it work for you and if you can actually disclose what was it was there was it lucrative

34:05Rik Oostenbroek:how would you describe it it was at the weirdest time given we were expecting our first kid which was january 2021 we got our first kid he has the initials bsd by the way referring to a photoshop document that's how much i love digital art that was the time when people saw this piece for a 60 next 9 million or something like that and I was supposed to take a sabbatical I had my first migraines the months before like I was really doing four jobs at a time because like I wanted to provide for a family blah blah anyways I totally destroyed myself and I was supposed to take sabbatical and I was like okay everybody started to hit me up like even my neighbors like Rick, you digital art, shouldn't you do NFTs?

34:51Rik Oostenbroek:I didn't have a Coinbase account and stuff like that. So I had to ask an online friend of mine, Nicholas Lumber, goes by the online name of DivType, who took over my screen through any desk to scout me and to navigate through the crypto madness to get my first Ethereum to mint something. Fast forward. I didn't have much expectation, but it was again one of those moments where anything sort of was timed right for me. And I'm not talking from the financial POV, although it was lucrative. But it also taught me that there's a different market as well for digital art or digital artists in this pace, which is mean we were celebrated as artists.

35:35Rik Oostenbroek:And I never really had that moment before. Like I always felt more like a tool, especially when working for brands. I was a tool to make their product stand out or to look fancy or whatever. If I collaborated with Ray-Ban, for instance, like I would never approach it as an artist collaboration. I would always approach it as a commission myself, right? Like I would never see like, hey, they're looking for an artist. They see me like an artist. And Web3 or the NFT space kind of changed that perspective for me for the better. Although what was that period? It was definitely stressful, especially 21, 22.

36:11Rik Oostenbroek:I was celebrated quite well in that space. Being at the right moment at the right time, I hosted some even in real life events in Amsterdam where people came to and we connected. It was artists and crypto bros and even my parents came out and they always said good vibes and stuff like that. And it was, oh my God, this is Rick Osir. He's a legit artist. I needed to be in the photo with folks. That was quite weird. As a delucative, yes. In the end, yes. Though the cryptocurrency going up and down could be quite nerve-wracking, especially if you're not an expert in that field and you don't know what to do.

36:52Rik Oostenbroek:Also there, I've made friends for life, which is also an amazing thing. And it was really, because it was, again, this quite a small bubble with events like across the globe, it really felt like those old digital art days where we were just like exchanging knowledge online. And it was more like an exchange of crypto bro, educating crypto to this geeky artist from the Netherlands and this artist from the Netherlands advising this crypto bro, like on what artist is legit and what they should consider to buy. And it was a wild time. I very much enjoyed it. It landed me on crazy places, crazy collaborations.

37:32Rik Oostenbroek:I was even in an Amsterdam museum. Like my work was featured there thanks to the NFT space, which is cool. And still right now, like I'm building on onto that and not like, I also figured one way, by the way, we've added NFTs and showcasing them that there's no good way or proper way of showcasing digital art. I really feel that there is no television or screen that does justice to digital art. Yeah, if you do an installation or a real-life installation or like a G-Monk kind of like robots and more creation laser shit, like that's cool. But displaying art on a television, even if it's in a museum, it's still not it.

38:12Rik Oostenbroek:So that's why I tend to move on to the physical world right now. But the entire guy, like hanging in a gallery, hanging in a museum, like that kind of stuff opened my eyes. It's a different kind of exposure you're getting. It's also a different pair of eyes. And it's not really the eyes. Like I don't want those eyes to buy my work, but I want those eyes to love digital art and see its potential, like what it could be. And yeah, I found that quite interesting that the entire artist perspective. But you said it was about we wanted to be celebrated as artists. all of a sudden we had a chance to be seen as artists and i was really curious where is the appreciation coming from because it was as you said it was not in a derogatory way again but it was crypto bros you know investing into this stuff it was kind of their way of exchanging currency for for creativity and i was skeptical about this because where was the whole crowd before the cryptocurrency i'm so happy it happened because i haven't spoke to people like josh davis in person obviously it's changed his life justin malo's life's changed because of that like some people have done incredibly well but those people were ready to do incredibly well of course our friend michael winkelman aka people did obviously incredibly incredibly well out of it and i think they still stayed the same and i kind of carried on because those people have brand equity they had visual equity they had a something that was the reason to be celebrated and it felt like a bit of like a fairy tale like oh okay shit obviously this is this is all of the money coming from somewhere and everyone felt like this is the time and you're thinking as quickly as it comes i'm sure it's gonna quickly go because it's like it's unsustainable like who's got let's say 25 grand to buy your instagram post and another 25 grand tomorrow to buy instagram post because there is um there is a way to support ourselves and that has also been hopeful and i just felt like it potentially brought some of the bad traits in people because people came across quite greedy and quite naive and quite unfortunately rude this is the new money experience and i was like oh my god okay well you want to be celebrated as an artist but you come across like a bit of a dick because you know you think that this is this is your money and all of a sudden you feel like this is like an exclusive thing so i just wanted to ask you about this because yeah it's seen it from both sides and have spoken to people like chat i think we should celebrate that it's happened uh we got to see quite a lot of like on a societal experiment we got to see how people behave and everything that's so good to be true obviously it's not really true so i think it's that way of understanding like how we operate i saw three nfts last week by the way it wasn't for as much as in 2021 but still just to say like it still happens and the fun thing now is though that this collector wanted he's he's from armenia he wanted like three prints with it as well so there there comes no but there comes a different kind like it's not just like a financial asset he showed me a picture of his his bedroom we're like hey i want to hang in here and he like so yeah i sent those files to the printer and I'm going to send them to him.

41:23Rik Oostenbroek:So that's, there are good folks in there. And yes, most of them are self-proclaimed collectors. The other hand, like it landed me crazy places and especially my work got seen. I was on a bari photo, I don't know if you know the event, but it's the biggest photo fair in Europe. And I don't know how many visitors there come, like 300 ,000 or something like that. And my work was featured as a featured piece there, which is weird because it was a digital gradient. there was no photo at all i'm still not sure if the working station was aware but thanks to like web 3d folks they got connections with galleries that somehow stumbled upon my work and were like hey this is cool that's do that together and so yes i i i'm still very grateful for whatever happened there but yeah it's things here and there as well i mean it's always valuable to see all sides because i think when i was talking about obviously quickly came and quickly went like that there was nft before the boom of nfts and obviously there's nfts still now obviously it's just that sort of that boom and bust of that experience but i know from your social media posts that you're never happy with how social media renders your work like there's always sort of loss of quality and you're never happy but what you mentioned earlier is that you've moved into physical and you did work with our friends in brno in czech republic on your exhibition about color you created your own two kilo book with how many hundreds of pages what's it like to transfer this into physical tangible when you started as a digital designer digital creator or digital illustrator and now pushing yourself into things that you can hold with your hands it's the most frustrating process ever you probably know you've been printing your work at times as well especially if it's like a book and you need to do everything with cnyk linear gradients are like the worst thing to print correctly color profiles there are so many things at play but i once did this collaboration with this guy that with rug and i got so many cool responses because it was a visible object and that was the moment was like okay my work is only visible on screens and apparently whenever it's not on screens more people tend to understand it again like it's putting it in a whole different perspective and all of a sudden you reach a different crowd And again, like it's not just to monetize your craft, which is interesting, but you can also inspire a whole new crowd.

43:50Rik Oostenbroek:To do that is quite a process. And I have to say that at times I'm still not fully happy with it because I want to mock it up. Actually, every time I mock it up, I'm like, okay, let's get it. It's perfect. It's very hard to have that control over it. You're so involved in the end product. It's right now you hand it off to a printer. And that's kind of what I miss. But to get such opportunities and to be able to show my work in different places is just like crazy. And I'm still trying to figure out like what the best way is to present my work. I've done multiple locations right now where I printed JPEGs, so to say.

44:27Rik Oostenbroek:So digital files on like a fine art paper, like the Hahnemühle, whatever, tons of grams. But I've also been screen printing a lot. And that's something I started with my friend Rutger back in the day. He was always vouching for me, getting off that screen and then get my hands dirty. I'd be less of the spoiled kid waiting for an email for a client to pay me big bucks for a little effort. I feel like that's where he was sometimes annoyed. Looked by that I didn't put energy into the physical execution of things and to see how it could work, how it could translate. Only since the last couple of months.

45:08Rik Oostenbroek:I mean, some sort of satisfaction with it as well, where I'm as confident to present it like something on the screen. And that transition has been quite hard. Like, I still don't know what kind of frame is best with what kind of body of work. You know what I mean? Like, I see some beautiful friends behind you and it's cool. And it works. But it works. But like, for me to phrase it, like, I never saw any brain. I never had an online store or stuff like that. Like I've always been so cautious about the fact that I'm a control freak. And whenever I see something on the screen, I like it. I want it to be exactly the same on a piece of paper.

45:45Rik Oostenbroek:And that's just hard. It's still something I'm trying to figure out, but something I want to figure out. I think it's the art of letting go, really. I mean, you can control what you can and let go of what you can't control because you learn the tips and tricks of what's possible within RGB space and then try to convert it to CMYK. because you sometimes have to surrender like there's not there's not possible and on the on the covers of my next three books i've got this beautiful sort of glass render type that we've created with timar ballo looks kick-ass on the screen and you're like okay we we have to find a method of how to print a bottom layer of silver ink and then put spot uv on top just to get closer to this because yeah sadly CMYK is a bit limiting but what I liked what you said you mentioned Rutger and his legacy like how much of an impact he had on what you created now because I've seen the photos of you doing screen print and I kind of almost feels like you're taking on from him where he left off because I love that he never stopped searching he was always on the lookout I loved his work before I met him I met him we did some work together just like yourself he had the visual style with the type of colors and materials he was using in his work and then he took it into the physical space now rediscovering some of his older pieces and i'm like holy shit the guy was so ahead of the time creating things that i'm like how did you do it and i've i'm glad i've had time to speak to him before he passed like to just to share the appreciation kind of reiterate it again because what he's created was such a body of work that he went too soon but what he left behind is just so incredible.