Kiki is a digital artist and illustrator from Nigeria who draws his inspiration from his personal experiences in life. He uses his portraits to express his feelings or what he might be going through at that point in time. Human emotions and experiences are where he gets his truest inspiration.
We discussed his portrait, Hypnosis, which is about love. How you can be in love with someone or something, and even if it’s hurting you, you are still fixated by it. You want it even if it’s draining you, you become hypnotized by it.
We also discussed the portrait, Heartwarming. Again about love, but from a different perspective. His desire was to create this woman that was full of warmth and love was the inspiration.
He is supported by the Nigerian Arts Community, many of whom were in the Twitter Space e hosted with him. They are his biggest collectors, and fans. They inspire him to keep going, to keep making art. It is about community, family and growth in Web3, that is the difference from Web2 he feels is most prevalent in his life.
Each of his works takes anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks to complete. He is trying to balance work, creating art and having a life, without much success (anyone in Web3 knows this struggle for sure), and finds himself burning out too often. But his desire to get better and grow a following that collects his art is what drives him to keep creating. He is a creator through and through and nothing stops his creative process.
He is currently working on animating more of his work, but also his biggest desire is to improve as an artist with each and every piece. So he plans to just keep working on his skills and just keep creating, it’s what drives him to thrive in this digital economy each and every day.
The message he wants his audience to get from his work is to Be Yourself.
Listen to his incredible full interview below!