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The "Mother" of the Bored Ape, the Creative Journey of a 27-Year-Old Asian-American Artist

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"Not many people know that I created Boring Apes, which is horrible for an artist," Seneca said.

Original title: "The NFT Art World Wouldn't Be the Same Without This Woman"s "Wide-Awake Hallucinations""

Original author: SAMANTHA HISSONG

Original compilation : Deepchain

"Bored Ape" Bored Ape Yacht Club is undoubtedly the brightest new star in the encryption world at present, but Most people may have never heard of the creator of this head NFT project-the 27-year-old Asian American artist Seneca (Seneca).

Of course, for Seneca, she never thought that this set of works would be sparked a technological revolution.

Nowadays, Bored Ape Yacht Club is definitely the largest in the world One of the NFT projects, since its first appearance in May last year, it quickly detonated the entire Internet, and the price has also risen, reaching millions of dollars at one point. However, Seneca, as its creator, had no idea that her work had become so popular until late last year, when she Googled the name and woke up.

It is no exaggeration to say that Bored Ape Yacht Club has created Over $1 billion in revenue and attracting the mainstream to the crypto space as well. Yet Seneca, who was central to the project and integral to bringing the idea to life, received no credit.

Watching NFT enthusiasts bring their own works to every corner of the Internet , I believe that feeling is really bittersweet. Imagine walking into a museum at random, only to find your artwork hanging on a wall decorated with velvet rope; similarly, when Seneca logged into Twitter ( Her Twitter handle is All Seeing Seneca), and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw NBA superstar Steve Curry using a portrait of her creation as his avatar.

Seneca said: "It really took me a while to digest it all" , she sat cross-legged on the living room floor of her Manhattan apartment, in front of a small gray sofa—under which a pile of pastel paintings were randomly placed, “The world is changing so fast, but I’m still the same me.” Behind the sofa A small, disorganized workspace—Seneca called it a studio.

Seneca was born in the United States, but her parents are both Chinese, and she grew up in Shanghai, grew up and went to the United States to study at the Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating in 2016, Seneca moved to New York as a freelance illustrator, using a corner of the apartment as her office, specializing in vibrant, fantasy-like characters for advertising and marketing campaigns , such as some 2D animations. (Although her past works were more abstract, she had to find a "realistic" way to monetize her creative passion.)

A creative agent named Nicole Muniz stumbled upon Seneca's college portfolio and admired her Nicole Muniz said: "For Seneca's works, I especially like the fine lines and brushstrokes." So she began introducing Seneca to companies in various industries, such as healthcare, insurance, green energy, and finance. Last year, Nicole Muniz called Seneca with a proposal: Her childhood friend was creating something called the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and she joined the project as an advisor , though the team also needed some graphic designers to create the images. In fact, all these things happened in the early days of the development of the NFT industry, and no one expected that NFT would suddenly become popular on the Internet in the later period.

The reason Nicole Muniz immediately thought of Seneca was entirely because of her "Chameleon" ability, she believes that Seneca is one of the few artists who can paint differently according to the theme and project. Nicole Muniz is now the co-CEO of Web 3 company Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Gargamel, the company's co-founder. Stunned by the "expressiveness" of the characters Seneca created, he said:

"It's very, very rare. I can feel a whole mood being conveyed. With the ape art design, we saw exactly the kind of mood we wanted: an existential sense of boredom." < /p>

Nicole Muniz agrees, saying: "Seneca's special Good at expressing, and designing characters to life."

But interestingly, Seneca was not familiar with the NFT industry at the time, but during the cooperation process, Yuga Labs gave her a lot of space, they Telling Seneca at the time: We want a kind of "punk ape." What kind of image do you think that would be? What style do you like? How do you think the design will look good?

So Seneca imagined himself an ape neighbor in a sleazy city Here, primates roam freely as citizens of the city, and she sees "a kind of ape who's bored with life but has all the money and time in the world hanging out in metal bars," Not only that, but she also imagined how to interact with this creature. And these are the sources of inspiration for this project.

In fact, the ape image created by Seneca is closely related to her own aesthetics: A self-described metal rocker, she plays Gibson SG - and does it really well - and also enjoys listening to bands like Megadeth, Behemoth and Bullet for My Valentine. But she's also a fan of the gritty animation of the '90s, and she loves that grit and draws inspiration from it.

But to be clear, Seneca is not the only illustrator on the project, she Added: "I'm just the lead artist behind this NFT series." In fact, Bored Ape's body parts were completely copied from her drawings, and other key features, such as the grinning mouth, protruding eyes and beanie, were also designed by her, while other production artists such as Thomas Dagley, Migwashere, and an anonymous couple tackled some of Bored Ape's other traits and circumstances.

Seneca said: "Not many people know that I created the boring ape, which is very important for a Terrible for artists.”

However, thanks to the rapid spread of the Internet, Cy Neckar is starting to gain word of mouth, which she hopes will help her find more partners. Meanwhile, Seneca has also been concentrating on her personal work.

Last December, Seneca launched the first NFT series in her own name , called: Iconoclast, a collection already launched at Art Basel in Miami, with four pieces she created minted on Ethereum and hosted on the Internet Computer blockchain. (Note: Hosting NFTs on the Internet Computer blockchain ensures that NFT artwork will always exist on the public blockchain without risk of deletion or cloud outage issues.)

In the end, these works yielded a value of 23.7 ETH, or about $84,000 at the time of writing. Seneca says the money is enough to pay her own bills, and she now has enough time to work on her next collection, which she hopes to launch in February. Not only that, but Seneca also unleashed a mesmerizing personal style in his creations that has persisted and continued to evolve over the years. Ken Wong, illustrator who art directed Seneca's favorite video game Alice: Madness Returns:

"Seneca creates art that brings a sense of inspiration."

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Ken Wong met Seneca in Shanghai when he was approached by Seneca after he gave a speech about his career at Seneca's high school. According to Seneca, Ken Wong was completely her introduction into the world of illustration.

Ken Wong adds: "If you must label Seneca's work If so, it may be called popular surrealism, but this label may not be very comprehensive... because she is still exploring. Seneca is constantly looking for her own route, by trying different Artistic style, constantly evolving itself, I can totally understand that."

From "Boring Apes, you might find a technical shift in Seneca's approach, but her images often contain a subdued, childlike wonder that stands in stark contrast to the harsh existential darkness. Ken Wong goes on to explain: “It’s a very personal and very popular combination, and the shapes that Seneca uses—these organic, flowing shapes are very dreamy, with a surreal color scheme—I think they illustrate the How she sees something deep inside her. But, at the same time, these works are actually framed through the lens of pop culture, as if Seneca's self-expression, she tries to make herself appear in the context of her work. Rationalization.”

In the Art Basel 2021 series, a piece of this sentiment is called Literally reflected in the works called "Delirium" (Delirium, pictured below). In this composition, plants, animals and limbs emerge from the gaping eye sockets of a girl's unnaturally oval head. "That's how I feel, you know, everything is crazy, it's okay, that's how I think," Seneca said.

In another picture called In Can I Be M0ther, Seneca shows the same girl. This time, though, her worm-like eyes were soft and angular as they shed thick, sticky tears and it wasn't clear if veins, wires or threads had slipped through them. out. The "fluid" falls and wraps around the girl's outstretched hand, which holds what appears to be a malfunctioning toy ape.

“As a commercial artist, I see myself as a sort of agent,” Cy Neka explains, “Art is an extension of your rich emotions, and art is very personal, and in a way you have to distance yourself from the work to feel that way. It’s like I’m saying, ‘ Can I get my work back? Can I get my identity back as an artist?

Seneca thinks it might be Caused by "lucid nightmares" that have plagued her for as long as she can remember. Seneca said that she had a memory when she was three years old

, but at that time she had a nightmare—

“I was in a stroller,” Seneca recalls, “and it made me feel small and vulnerable.”

Seneca does not elaborate on dreams, but we can already realize that these grotesque themes have been permeating her works, She said it was inspired by cosmic horror. Speaking of his early years, Seneca said:

“I’m very concerned about my Imagination is more interested in reality than reality.”

Seneca admitted that most of the time he Remains silent, and has remained so for most of childhood, sometimes experiencing "hallucinations of full lucidity". ”

Every day before going to bed, Seneca would remember all the deep fears she had experienced, She thought that if she could face her fears, they wouldn't show up in her nightmares—but often they didn't, and this attitude kept her awake. "I don't want to sleep because I'm afraid I'm going to jump into that world of fear."

Until Only recently has Seneca come to embrace the “crazy part” of it—she’s turned her inner “surrealism and the dark arts of meaninglessness” into something beautiful. In Senekai's view, this method has a very good healing effect. “That’s why I chose to do this,” Seneca explained, while admitting that she didn’t want to share it with many people because she was afraid of being considered “crazy.”

However, Seneca was lucky.

What she considers "crazy", or "some form of crazy", is very popular in the Web 3 space . Quite frankly, cryptocurrencies would not exist without the “urge to deviate from the norm.” Seneca said she hopes that the NFT industry will still thrive in the next few years, thanks to the Bored Ape Yacht Club experience, which gave her "a rich lesson in life", so she hopes that other aspiring creators Learn more about NFTs and smart contracts, royalties, and more. Seneca said frankly: "Be firm in your beliefs and work very hard. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. In the crypto community and NFT space, things will move very fast, you need to pay attention, but don't care , focus on the track you are best at, and you will be able to do well in the end."

Of course, the so-called "good" , is actually relative.

Although we don't know how much Seneca has gained, at least for herself To put it bluntly, the ratio of giving and receiving is actually "not ideal". However, Seneca insisted that she was very grateful for this experience and entered a completely unimaginable field. Since entering the field, she has no doubts about the idea of NFT, because NFT can verify and preserve art, providing creators with royalties. , and make the art world more inclusive and less dependent on traditional galleries.

Seneca believes that the second NFT series he created, which is Iconoclast, is actually An extension of the foundations of Surrealism, but bolder than ever. In fact, every time she discusses her work in progress, Seneca is very careful, and has been emphasizing mental health and the strength of strong women (although her new work may contain some "critical" sentiments) .

Seneca concluded by saying:

“I am The field of NFT is very optimistic, and I think I can control it.”