#37 - Dehiscence
Tell us more about you..
I’m Dehiscence, a multi-media artist based in Toronto. I was a really late bloomer when it comes to art. I didn’t start making art until 2017 at the age of 46. I started exploring the NFT space when the pandemic hit and I have never turned back. I don’t have any formal art education. The one thing I know how to draw is human anatomy because I have studied it for many years. I learned anatomy by drawing it, but other than anatomy classes and one high school art class, I have no other training. I’m self-taught. My art is mash-up of digital painting, collage and artificial intelligence and sometimes even video or gifs.
How do you describe your NFT Art?
I refer to my art as visual anthropological explorations of the human experience, which is quite a mouthful, but I refer to it as such, because my art is heavily influenced by my interactions with the human body through my careers in forensic anthropology & most recently in healthcare. My art often focuses on the human body and/or our perceptions of the human body. This focus is in part, due to the societal and cultural standards of what physical “perfection” is. When you look around at social media, magazines and television, what you see are the perceived beauty standards based on numerous factors such as gender roles, class status, the latest fashion and fads. When it’s all really just a bunch of modified and filtered nonsense. These false perceptions of beauty is what drives my creative process. I want to even the playing field, so to speak, by either modifying our external façade or by bringing our internal biological world to the forefront. I also tend to shift the focus onto the social issues regarding human rights. It’s the social aspect of my art which is heavily influenced by my previous humanitarian work as an anthropologist and the merging of art with technology such as artificial intelligence, is influenced by my career in post-surgical critical care.
Why did you choose this piece to show us?
I chose to show you ‘Echo Chamber’ as I feel it is an important subject in the current climate of misinformation and disinformation, with social media playing a huge part in disseminating that false and misleading information. Art description: There is an alarming ease with which social media and the internet as a whole can be abused, and used to prop up dubious narratives. Cyberbullying, troll factories, campaigns of misinformation facilitated by alternative news sites where actual accuracy can no longer be taken for granted. This proliferation of urban myths and conspiracies would perhaps be laughable if it weren’t so uniquely dangerous. We trigger algorithms that curate our feeds. These cherry-pick things with which we are likely to agree and jettison information that does not appear to fit our preferences – often at the cost of accuracy and balance. Rumours and gossip get in the flow, and we begin to lose our ability to differentiate between information and opinion. The divisions run deep, creating walled communities that reinforce their own beliefs in a feedback loop. These online echo chambers cement dubious notions, giving them an air of legitimacy and fuel increasing separation from reality.
Can you leave a message to collectors and other artists that are willing to connect with you?
I’m always open to discussing my art with collectors, potential collectors and artists alike. I think it is important to have transparency and build genuine relationships, even within a more anonymous space such as web3. I would encourage anyone who would like to discuss my art or collaborations to reach out to me via DM on twitter.
