Fakito: Argentinian Gen-Z

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Fakito interviewed by Crypto_Northerner (Twitter: @G79Manc)

Fakito’s initial work on SuperRare started with LIMON, VERANO, CUBA and 1225 – surrealist pieces with purple, pink hues. Fakito’s work developed towards the vibrant TERROR, MEMORIA, DESPEDIDA and EGOISMO with some showcased in the Gen-Z Decentraland exhibition as well as in Shanghai. Fakito, more recently, has been involved in collaborations with @odious with others potentially in the pipeline. Fakito’s dedication to his work, his hunger and his commitment to his collectors made him stand-out to me as an artist, that will drive his creations further over time. We wish him all the best in his future artistic endeavors.

Fakito or Facu – are these your nicknames or does it have some other relevance and meaning?

My real name is Facundo, and Facu is short for that. I became known as Fakito as some people from my family would call me like that, so I guess it just stuck with me enough to use it as a nickname for my art.

How would you describe the themes in your current suite of artwork? And how have the themes developed since you first began crypto art?

When I first began crypto art I was mainly focusing on portraits, and trying to develop a style that would represent me as an artist and be recognizable to other people. After taking an art history class I found my love for surrealism, so I developed my style to match one I’m comfortable with and that I think represents everything I want to perfect. That’s how I went from making portraits to really vibrant surrealist pieces.

You are based in Buenos Aires – has this always been your home? Can you detail any life experiences, thoughts or emotions that have influenced how your art is represented?

I was born in Buenos Aires and I have lived most of my life here, and I also lived in London for a couple of years before moving back to Argentina. I feel like Argentina’s music scene has made me start representing what I feel in my art. This country has suffered a lot and has had some really rough times, musical artists from those years would talk about a lot of subjects that were hard to talk about in their music and really put a lot of raw emotion into it. All of this is very inspiring as an artist.

Could you maybe detail a timeline of your pathway into the art world and where you are now – what were the changes along the way that pulled you towards tokenizing art on the SuperRare platform?

I started out making social media designs for people like streamers and youtubers, and I usually got my in touch with clients through Twitter back then. One day I saw someone re-tweet an artwork by @beeple, and I was immediately hooked on his work and couldn’t believe what this amazing artist was able to achieve in a single day, so I set a goal and started making daily pieces as well – I already had some 3D knowledge when I started and doing this helped me to grow a lot. When I was doing daily pieces, I would mainly focus on techniques instead of representing emotions or telling a story with a piece, I used it as a way to expand my technical knowledge. After around 3 years of doing only 3D work and not doing any more social media designs, I found SuperRare and it changed the course of my art completely, the second I saw that I could be valued more as an artist I got inspired and did my best to start adding emotion and storytelling to all the technical knowledge I had learnt in the previous years.

You have recently been tagged amongst the Gen-Z artists by SuperRare, taking part in a Gen-Z exhibition in Decentraland whilst also the more recent exhibition of your work in Shanghai – could you talk us through your experience of these moments, and how have they added perspective to your view of crypto-art?

All of these experiences have been surreal to me, the fact that my work was in an exhibition in Shanghai is what really put the potential of crypto art into perspective for me. This space is growing exponentially and will continue to do so for a long time, and it makes me extremely happy to be a part of it from such an early stage.

VERANO, CUBA, 1225 have a similar theme running through them, as well as maybe ENTIDAD VIRTUAL, whilst OTRADAD, MEMORIA, AYUDA, TERROR and DESPEDIDA take on a different style and theme – can you walk us through how you see these artworks and explain your interpretation?

VERANO, CUBA and 1225 have a more realistic style compared to my latest work, which is something I loved doing and want to keep on working on but unfortunately my computer can’t handle scenes like those any more – only opening the project files causes everything to crash, so I had to find a way to say more with less – which is something I am working on and experimenting with on my latest pieces. Luckily crypto art has helped me take care of a lot of investments like a better computer which I will be getting soon and will hopefully give me more liberty when it comes to making art. I feel like my latest work represents me as an artist better than pieces like CUBA for example, but there is definitely still an influence of the style on my current work.

ENTIDAD VIRTUAL is a collaboration with Joaquina Salgado @cryptobaby, which had the goal of integrating a character of mine into a world that she built. Joaquina is truly an amazing artist who does a lot of work with VR and creates some amazing spaces, working on this collaboration with her was great. OTREDAD is another collaboration with yet another fellow artist from Argentina, Lenny Forster @LennyForster. This collaboration had the same goal as ENTIDAD VIRTUAL had but this time it was Lenny who was stepping into my world. Working on OTREDAD with him was really fun, we experimented a lot with what we could do and what the piece could say.

If we focus in on TERROR – the deep red and dominant, larger representation overlooking the terrified smaller halo’d representation – could you speak specifically on this piece?

TERROR was my first experimentation on this new style I am currently working on. This piece is based on personal experiences, so it is very meaningful to me, and I really like how the piece came out. I feel like this piece helped me make a big step regarding how I represent feelings in my work. It is one of my favorite pieces to date as I think it set a base and helped me achieve a goal that I always wanted. The vibrant red color of the piece is something that already sets a good mood for the piece, even if the characters and title of the piece aren’t there to guide you as to what the piece represents – the fact that that is possible is what makes me love the piece and want to continue to expand the style I started doing with it.

What are some of the short-term and long-term goals for Fakito? Are there plans to branch out into VR galleries, VR art and spread yourself into these other domains or are you focusing in on SuperRare for now?

I do have some of my work in a gallery in Somnium Space, which anyone can visit. Unfortunately, I have never been able to enter the space in VR but I will invest in a headset to do so soon. For now, my plans for the future are to improve as much as I can and keep learning about art and to get into collecting NFTs from some of my favorite artists.

Are you adding any further techniques to your art that you see can evolve your current art representation?

I am currently working on a couple techniques that I haven’t used much before in my work, like 3D sculpting and working with simulations for example. When I finally get my new computer, I will be experimenting more with these as I need a more powerful workstation to be able to get the most out of these techniques. Something I want to add to my work soon as well is painting on top of my renders. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time and have been working on developing my style and learning new things since I made my last piece.

What are your thoughts around Collectors – can they help or hinder your perspectives? How do you decide who to affiliate or ally with – what are the challenges with this?

Talking to collectors in this space has helped me grow a lot. Understanding how people value art and see an artist as an investment is fascinating to me. I love talking to people in this area because I always end up learning something new. Lately I have started to do deals for my art personally with collectors who are interested in my work via social media. I feel like working with collectors personally is better because I get to see what they like about the piece and also get an idea of where my work is going to go. I affiliate or ally with just about anyone to be honest, I always like speaking to different people to get different opinions and have a wider spectrum of understanding of whatever topic we discuss. When it comes to art, I like affiliating with collectors who have a collection I like and who actually show interest in collecting my art because they like the work.

Which artists on SuperRare have impressed you?

There are a lot of artists that impressed me on SuperRare, most of them I have had the pleasure of saying that I know now and talk to them. The artists who impressed me the most upon joining were:

There are a lot more artists whose work I find impressive as well, and it’s hard to make a list of just a couple because there are so many more, but I think that these artists stand out to me because they all have some techniques in their art which relate a lot to me and how I see my work.

What’s your favourite sport, food and where would you like to travel to and why?

My favorite food is the Empanada. It’s a classic dish from Argentina which I will probably never get tired of. My favorite sport is football, I love playing with my friends, it’s a great way to de-stress and have a good time while doing so. It’s hard for me to choose only one place I want to travel to – I would love to go around the world learning about different cultures and how art is represented in each of them, I think that trip would be amazing for me.

@crypto_northerner: https://superrare.com/crypto_northerner/collection

Twitter: @G79Manc

Mentions: @_totemical, @frenetikvoid, @blacksneakers, @etienecrauss, @mercpin, @fewocious, @beeple, @cryptobaby, @lennyforster, @odious

ETH: 0x13e49cd3f314188032bed445a2f3de55f3669110