This time NFTMart “Artist Invite” series invited independent artist soos to share his creation with us. At the same time, soos’ NFT series will soon be launched on NFTMart.
Soos was born in Wenling, Zhejiang, and now lives in Beijing. He is a graffiti artist.
Street graffiti originated in the 1960s. After years of development, graffiti has formed a brand new art form.If you live in Beijing, you will definitely see one that often appears on a broken wall, hard concrete or on the exterior wall of a renovated building The image of cute and naive “ Little Friend “.Sometimes he is facing the sky on his back, sometimes lying on his side and blinking at you. This “Little Friend” who sleeps all over the world comes from the hands of Chinese graffiti artist and trend pioneer-soos. Soos’ “ Little Friend” was born in 2000 and has grown into an “Elder Friend”. He has soft limbs and a body with water droplets. Only his two eyes are smart and deep, making him like an elfin who jumps out of the world. He travels to all corners of the world in a silent, peaceful and relaxed posture, shining in casual places. “Little Friend” has developed cross-industry collaborations with well-known artists and HIPHOP musicians.It has aroused widespread attention and love in the graffiti industry and the society.
Knowing soos for many years, he is indeed an out-and-out hipster. The concept of “hipster” is also mostly based on his artistic expression. The image of “Little Friend” was bred together with the “BDMG” founded in 2001, a non-profit organization focusing on promoting youth culture. Its purpose is to use the hip-hop culture that young people love to establish a platform of friendship between China and foreign countries. “BDMG” is derived from the initials of the four elements of hip-hop “Breaking DJ MC Graffiti”. Since its establishment, BDMG has successfully held many international competitions such as graffiti and street dance in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Xi’an, Nanjing, Hokkaido, St. Petersburg and other places. From another perspective, BDMG also loves art and pursues a “utopia” of beautiful things. As soos said, the trend is to show the future direction to the public in advance.
Q&A
1. Please introduce yourself
I am soos, born in Taizhou, Zhejiang, China. I loved painting and grew up in Nanjing. I started to learn street dance and create graffiti in 1999. I have been creating the avatar “Little Friend” of the same name that I yearn for to be relaxed and at ease up to now. I came to Beijing in 2005 to engage in artistic creation, and established BJPZCREW in 2007; in 2017, I established the cultural marketing platform BDMG to spread hip-hop youth culture; in the same year, I established China’s first container graffiti theme park in Wangsiying UNIQUE, Beijing. I am grateful that I can always do what I like, and thank you for supporting me silently.
2. What is “Little Friend” like? Does he have any special meaning?
In my memory, “Little Friend” should have a pure and innocent character, with lines that are open to all rivers. He has soft and relaxed limbs, the shape of water droplets, and eyes that are quiet or closed. Relaxed and at ease, feeling the good times of all things in the world. At the beginning of the creation of “Little Friend”, I was looking for a simple image that could represent myself, and used it to express my understanding and perception of this world. Gradually, I found that the expressions, behavior, speech, and eyes of the friends around me were very cute like “Little Friend”. The feeling that everyone is a little friend is exactly what I expect from brand users: Keeping a child-like innocence and curiosity at all times, “empty” choices between thinking and not thinking, will naturally get the wonderful cause and effect as you wish.
3. Where did your creative inspiration come from?
The embryonic form of “Little Friend” comes from the early graffiti found that the text cannot accurately express one’s own feelings, and after strenuous pursuit, he finally realized his dream and created this ethereal body. “There is no distraction between thinking and not thinking.” Gradually, I found that the expressions, manners, words, and eyes of different friends around me are all like “Little Friends”. The feeling that everyone is a child is exactly what the brand’s users expect: Always maintain a child-like innocence and curiosity.
4. What was the original intention of establishing the BDMG community?
It comes from the love of hip-hop and graffiti culture. We continue to organize domestic and international competitions and related events to introduce what is graffiti culture and encourage and attract more graffiti lovers to join. With the BDMG Container Graffiti Park, the emergence of Graffiti Park quickly became an icon of domestic street culture. Hip-hop, DJ, MC, graffiti, skateboarding and other circles are here to communicate. Common hobbies make it a social platform to drink beer, paint graffiti, and share recent developments. The youthful lifestyle gradually formed a community atmosphere here. I think the BDMG graffiti community will become a social life scene with street culture attributes in the future. I hope more friends will learn about and participate in it.
5. What is the difference between graffiti culture and mainstream culture?
Graffiti is originally an underground culture, derived from the streets full of faith in the expression of freedom and individuality, arrogant and free. Mainstream culture includes niche culture. The development of graffiti today has derived pro-mainstream terms such as street art and urban art. Numerous blessings from street artists and art academies have made more people realize that graffiti represents more in-depth content, such as reflection on individuals and society, in addition to rebellion. These have allowed graffiti culture to enter the art gallery on the ground. Many graffiti expressions are often borrowed by other art forms. Guided street graffiti is now common in many countries and cities, and it has become a kind of public art that is more and more accepted and liked.
6. Have you been exposed to NFT before? How much do you know about this field?
I have understood that this is a relatively new concept and field. NFT is still in its early stages of development. In the future, digital art will also become an important part of the art industry. Personally, I will continue to pay attention to and welcome new perspectives.
7. What will your first work published on NFTMart look like?
It may be the avatar and dynamic avatar of my own “Little Friend” IP cast into NFT, all of which will be sold in limited quantities. In the future, we will even jointly develop game products that players can buy, trade or feed “Little Friend”.
About NFTMart
NFTMart is a marketplace for NFTs based on the Substrate Framework.
It’s a fractional trading NFTs marketplace in the Polkadot ecosystem, with our own public chain. and we commit to being the most professional NFT marketplace in the world.
NFTMart is committed to being a low-cost-to-participate NFT marketplace, which provides users with NFT issuance and transaction services.
It is divided into two parts:
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NFTMart will also establish an ecological fund to support third parties to expand NFTMart through interfaces, contracts, and other methods to achieve a more diversified NFT+ ecosystem.
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