Alimo, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I'm excited to hear about your show which opens today, Solitude Safari! To begin, can you introduce yourself to our community? Your name, where you are from, and the mediums you work in?

Hey everyone, thanks Dave for having me. My artist's name is Alimo, I'm from the West Coast and grew up in Oregon.

Since then, I've bounced all over the world, and now in Brooklyn. It's been a blast. I work in a variety of mediums. Everything starts out on paper, pencil, and watercolors. I then bring those rough paintings onto the computer to figure out color palette and some composition. I then bring that back into the physical world to paint on canvas. Lots of tools to help fuel my creative vision, and I basically use anything to help that come to life. I love it.

Love to hear it, and I'm a huge fan of your work. First off, can you let us know about your show that is coming up? Would love to hear the specifics about that before we zoom out and take more of a birds eye view.

Appreciate the kind words, right back at you with your work. It's amazing.

Very excited about my upcoming solo show. Been in the works conceptually for 2 years. Last year, I met the company Ilegal Mezcal late night at a bar. Classic scenario where all the stars align and we hit off. I’ve been a fan for years, but didn’t realize the types of shows they put on for musicians and artists all over the world. We briefly chatted about a show that night. Over the next 9 months of pitching ideas, I finally got the green light from them for my first solo show.

The show is called ‘Solitude Safari’. Its about living in NYC in all the chaos, and how folks find piece and tranquility in between. I got so enamored by how everyone is on their phone roaming the city (me included) that I found myself drawing these characters in my sketchbook on a daily basis. The more I peeled the layers back, the more I noticed folks being content in their surroundings. Whether that be going to the beach, the park, the balcony, or even just pulling out a bbq on the front porch of their house in the streets. Folks all over found this peace.

I wanted to capture these moments and share out my lens of NYC.

I ended up painting 10 large scale paintings. At first glance, it fine art, but over the year I built code under the hood. To help pair the physical with the digital, we build an interactive certificate of authenticity (COA) and a multi-image token. What’s that mean?

The COA is a bridge to the physical and digital. Traditional world, you give a tangible certificate to show ownership, but those can be lost. This COA is a digital copy of that ownership. If someone pays me with cash or ETH, that price tag and owners name gets stamped on chain to the visual certificate. This can be seen by clicking on the image towards the last slide.

The multi image token is a way for me to share the digital NFT and photos of the physical painting. This adds another depth of ownership.

On top of that, I pair each painting with a NFC chip to bridge that gap. When you hover your phone over the backside of the painting, it’ll open up a link to the NFT. It’s awesome.

The goal for this show outside of my body of work is to help onboard traditional web2 folk to web3 without any friction. They see fine art and once they realize the tech, it is an 'ah-ha' moment with them because the idea of a certificate of authenticity is widely known.

One simply loves to hear it. I love this whole concept, a very thoughtful integration of all the things I think are important for artists right now. I look forward to seeing it all unfold. When did you first encounter your creativity? And tell us a bit about the journey that got you here.

Me too, its a super super unique type of show and I'm unsure if anyone has done this quite yet. That is probably why I've had so many hiccups leading up to this, which has been a fun learning curve.

Creativity as been around since I was a rugrat. I was one of those kids drawing with crayons on the walls trying to replicate my imagination. I just never grew out of it. When I got to high school I did a lot of paintings and primarily videography following my friends skateboard, that then led into a lot of photography. I kept seeing all these graphics in Thrasher magazine and snowboarder mag with the coolest layouts and logos. I couldn’t figure out how they did it really until college. When I went to art school graphic design caught my eye and I went down that path.

Throughout art school, they really pushed us conceptually to tell a story through any medium. For those reasons, I took a ton of painting classes, coding, digital art, ceramics, and more photography. It was so fun.

Post school, I bought a one way ticket and went out to Australia. I ended up hitchhiking up the East coast, went to Indo to surf for a while, then found myself in Thailand with $50 in my name. I had friends teaching English in Vietnam and they said ‘come on over’. I didn’t want to go home yet, or ask my family for the funds to get me back. I ended up buying a ticket for $49 and had a dollar in my name in Saigon.

I ended up sleeping on my friends couch and later found out the neighbors were 4 western creatives in the city. Long story short, I ended up moving in next door and they introduced me to their agencies. Next thing you know, I was doing manga character design for Vitamilk and drawing Vietnamese typography all over. I even did a whole thing for Major Lazer out there, which at the time, I had no idea who that was.

Anyways, creativity has been with me for a long time. Almost a curse in some ways cause I can’t not think of projects 24/7. I love it.

Love to hear it and the passion you have for creativity shines bright. Its very encouraging to witness, someone fully committed to their creative drive.

Lastly, do you have any advice for a creative person who is earlier on their path? What advice do you wish you had heard when you were younger?

Best advice I ever got was just keep creating, be curious, and have fun. It’s easy to get stuck on the internet, IG, and Twitter and allowing yourself to have FOMO. You gotta take a step back and create just to create.

For me, sketching is like a relief. I get to brain dump that idea so I can move onto the next idea. This is similar with any creative outlet. Get your ideas out, don’t think about what other think, and just truly have fun. I know creativity comes with a lot of emotions, both good and bad. Try and leverage those feelings where you can.

Going back to IG if no one likes that post, don’t take it personal, take it as a learning tool to try out something different, maybe that resonates with folks later and slowly over time, that can help your own creative craft and maybe style.

Other tips is going to libraries and museums and learning about art history and artists. It’s a fun tool to spark creativity, then when you are looking for heroes that are alive today, you can follow some of their paths to get you on track.

Lastly, ask questions on all fronts. Be curious and live like a 5 year old kid. Cause kids always seem to have fun and live life to the max, soaking up life like a sponge (whether they know it or not).