Mariela DiNardo, a Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist, has been a graphic designer, Web designer, and artist for 25 years. She got into the NFT space in April 2021 and started WomenVerse, an NFT collection on OpenSea to empower women, in September 2021. WomenVerse came about in response to a tweet that claimed there were only 10 women in the NFT space.
The WomenVerse community grew in direct response to the bro culture that was quite prevalent in 2021 and remains present today. Mariela wanted to create a space that would support women artists and give them a safe place to discuss their art and support each other. In January 2022, she and her community members began working on the WomenVerse Museum. It will be a space for displaying women’s art and gaining greater exposure.
She is inspired to create from nature. She has always been curious about how things are constructed in the natural world, from evolution to how a seed turns into a plant and produces something we can eat. She is also inspired by shapes and light. She said that often when she is outside, she brings home “gems” from nature. She has boxes and boxes of these gems, as she’s been collecting them all her life. That was one of the inspirations behind her Nature Notes series. When she was younger, she would create collages out of these gems. Now she photographs them and turns them into NFTs.
I wanted to know about her piece “Red in Indigo,” as it is quite stunning and looks like a painting but was generated with AI. She said she started that piece with AI, then spent more than 40 hours working on it to create the textures and brushstrokes in Photoshop. She created it as an interracial celebration of life. She wanted to portray women who were dancing even though they have had some difficulties in their lives.
I was curious about her take on creator-collector sustainability. She said she didn’t think it was sustainable without new collectors coming into the space. We also touched on how few NFT artists were making enough on sales to be full-time artists during this crypto winter.
This includes herself. She is making sales but not enough to sustain herself if she didn’t have a job.
Her favorite artists are many, but these are her top five: Francien Krieg, Tania Rivilis, David Chiefetz, Andreas Birath and Tony Pro Fine Art.
Her favorite color is orange.
If she could change one thing in the NFT ecosystem, it would be what she is attempting to do with WomenVerse: to bring more women to the forefront and to give them the support they deserve.
She is currently working on two new collections that are AI related, with a focus on Abstract Expressionism and movement.
The message she wants people to get from her art is to have an opportunity for introspection: “To see a mirror and be a part of the art, and let your emotions, memories, and thoughts transform in any way.”
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