Jason Seife: The RE:birth of a Growing Career

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Jason Seife is an Artist based out of Miami, Florida. Simultaneously making a name for himself in both the Graphic Design and Fine Art worlds. Jason has worked on projects with Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Pharrell Williams, Mac Miller, Big Sean, and more. His paintings and sculptures have been the basis of successful solo exhibitions in galleries and museums across the U.S, Europe and Asia as well as collaborations with Nike and Kobe Bryant.

Article by Ellen Ratcliffe

The inspiration for Jason’s work is based around the notion that we can reinvent the past using modern day materials and compositions, allowing the excellence of an old craft to be admired by a younger generation. Seife was inspired by both his own Middle Eastern heritage and the complex artistic practice of Persian rug weaving. The original designs are laden with hidden meaning and language; the weavers were able to link each rug’s particular pattern, palette, and style with a specific and identifiable geographic area or community. Seife’s influences span the realms of art, architecture, performance and music. Seife grew up in Miami to immigrant parents who were supportive of his creative ambitions. After playing in bands throughout his adolescence Seife, a talented graphic designer, began creating album artwork for hip hop artists. He designed Big Sean’s lion logo, painted backdrops in Nicki Minaj’s music videos and created artwork for both Pharrell Williams and Mac Miller. Seife was not content solely actioning the creative vision of others, and so began to create his own work. With financial backing from his career in graphic design, Seife made the transition into creating contemporary artwork full-time in 2015. His paintings and sculptures have been the basis of successful solo exhibitions in galleries and museums across the U.S, Europe and Asia as well as collaborations with Nike and Kobe Bryant . Coming off his most recent sold out solo exhibition at Unit London I sat down with Jason to discuss his upcoming endeavor into creating NFT’s. What it means to him and where he plans to take it in the future.  

When did you first hear about NFT’s and what interested you in them?

Im fortunate to have become friends with a lot of amazing artists over the years thanks to social media and appreciation for each others work. A few of these artists were active really early on in the space and I always found it fascinating. As in any new medium or outlet that I take my work into I always want to make sure I am bringing something to the table that feels genuine and thought out. I didn’t want to rush into putting something out or minting a work for the sake of minting it, so I really took my time and studied the space and what I wanted to add to it. Having spent the last 2 years working on my most recent solo exhibition, once I completed that in December of last year I turned my focus into developing a new body of work for NFT. 

What really interested me about it was the ability to both literally and conceptually think outside of the box. I knew right away that I wanted my work in this space to exist as and extension or accompaniment to my paintings. As apposed to photographing or scanning an existing painting I wanted create new works from the same root imagery of my paintings that would ideally take them to a level and meaning that simply paint could not do on its own.

Can you tell us a bit more about your genesis piece “RE:birth”?

The idea for this piece came to me earlier this year. Before I make a painting I create high resolution digital renders which act as reference images for the paintings. These digital files up until now simply existed in my hard drives and were never shared to the public. For this piece I created a new design involving birds, which in ancient carpet imagery have always been rooted with deep meaning. Depending on the type of bird and where the design originated they were used to signify anything from fertility to joy and the celebration of a new beginning. With this piece being my first mint I knew I wanted it to represent a new beginning or new chapter in my artistic career. I chose to bring these birds to life through 3d modeling and animation. The conceptual meaning behind the origins of birds in carpet imagery tied into the physical act of rendering them to “life” in 3d was extremely interesting to me. It’s the first time I’ve been able to bring my work to life in this way and for me it genuinely feels like a rebirth of my artistic vision.

What are your plans for the future and where do you see your work going?

As mentioned before I have been developing my ideas for a few months now, so while I’m only minting one piece to start I do have quite a few other works already completed or near completion. For me my approach to art has always been quality over quantity. Because the works are so intricate they do take quite sometime to make so I prefer to have each piece I put out into the word whether physically or digitally to always be something I have sat with for a while and am fully content with. Im excited for the doors this has already opened for me in the ways that I approach creating art. I have some exciting ideas that would tie in a physical aspect such as a painting or sculpture in accompaniment to the NFT’s. I think a lot of artists feel they need to choose between making “digital” or “physical” art but in the end art is art and this is simply a new medium as any other so I will continue to create in all aspects that I can.

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