Jack Kaido • Artist Spotlight

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Who is Jack Kaido?

Jack Kaido is a digital abstract painter who has sold many pieces in his series ‘Errors’. These are abstract paintings infused with fractured layers, intentional errors, glitches, pixelation, overlapping collage strips of digital paint; images merging the old and universal (emotion, mood, colour relationships, form) with modern software.These paintings are hand-painted, chopped-up, stretched, pulled apart, altered by human hand with numerous software programmes, receiving errors to ‘traditional’ creation.

How did you start as an artist?

I’ve long been obsessed with abstract art and some years ago, I was looking at paintings by my favourite Abstract Expressionists and thought, “why don’t I just try making my own?”. So I bought canvas, acrylics and oils, and learned how to paint and how to mix oils through trial and error. At the same time, I studied many abstract works, obsessively. Painting is very much a means of expression for me.

I never sold or tried to sell a single physical painting, just painted for years out of love for creating and for abstract art. Even gave away numerous unsigned physical paintings to others, so there are people who own my earliest creations and they don’t even know it. I have the rest of those early paintings stacked up in my house. I’m now wondering what to do with all that.

What do you think of traditional art?

I love traditional art. I wouldn’t be an artist without it, without seeing and studying it. I own it, have bought some of it along with the NFT here, and have created lots of it, prior to being a digital artist. But my own art is digital, digital art is the future and Errors is a clear visual representation of and commitment to that belief.

I was admittedly a bit of a physical maximalist until around three years ago, when I started grasping the possibilities of digital art and realised that I needed to shatter and re-evaluate my own preconceptions around it. However, whilst my own art may be digital, I will still go to galleries to enjoy physical art, and physical artworks will sit alongside the artworks in digital frames in my house. I love both.

What got you into cryptoart?

I’ve been into crypto for a while but wasn’t aware of cryptoart (not NFTs, because of CryptoKitties affecting the ETH network in 2017) until last year. Slept on it, for my sins. I have been painting digitally for around two years now and started reading a lot more about art NFTs late last year. I decided to mint and share my work online in February, and now I’m all in. Regarding my cryptoart very beginnings, I want to thank a few people for their involvement in that initial domino effect of what has changed my life… Joe, Yekim, TJ, Pierre, Danny, Sean, h1dd3ncap1tal, Kalen, Aeight, Bazzy, Fred, Mikey K, huda, Peter and Brandon. Their choices had a massive ripple effect, especially Joe’s and Yekim’s in March.

Who or what inspires you? Inspiration comes from everywhere. Artworks I see in person, in books or online, from artists past and present. Books I’m reading, ideas contemplated. Emotions felt, moods in. Music is a big one too. During Errors, I have been mostly reading Aaron Haspel’s book Everything, pithy but razor sharp observations on life.

Colour combinations from anywhere too; books, billboards, sunsets, magazines, album covers, interior design, fashion, anywhere, just looking around for colour combinations. When I see something in the external world, I literally see something strong visually internally too, and this forms the basis of a colour combination or composition. Being an artist sometimes feels like being a thief with an overactive imagination.

Which other artists do you admire?

I admire and respect almost any artist who dedicates their life to creativity. I respect a lot of dead artists for that commitment and for their contributions to art history. I’m wary, however, of putting anyone on a pedestal, unless it’s Willem de Kooning or Joan Mitchell, two abstract giants.

As for NFT artists, I hold a lot of admiration for Aertime, an OG who has been creating digital art for many years. Aertime and I’s work is very different and is made in completely different ways, but his art has been influential to Errors and I view his creations as important. Not enough people know about them. Nevertheless, they will. I’ve paid my dues by offering him a free Error.

Robness is another. I often firmly disagree with things he says, but that’s healthy, everyone agreeing with everything is just weird and evidence of another echo chamber rather than a melting pot of free thought. As humans, we all are susceptible to groupthink and each of us have our own cognitive blindspots, however it’s valuable for any space to have counter-balances and as a voice on some subjects, Robness is exactly that — to this space, he’s like electricity: charged and unpredictable yet the type of presence only fully understood as vital by its absence. No one is infallible, including him, but I respect his propensity for speaking truth to power and for being a pioneer in numerous ways. Lastly, he truly gets that crypto’s core ethos and fundamental strength is about the empowerment of the individual. His abstract images have been influential in their own way however he’s not getting offered an Error because if accepted, there’s a high risk it would then be sacrificed on the altar of the Temple of Burn, haha.

Synesthesia is another, not only is he making abstract art from sound, but is pioneering a completely new model in music, I admire that visionary mind. Kalen Iwamoto is an equivalent visionary in cryptoliterature. There are many other NFT artists that I admire, but shout out to James, Amac, Festinalente, Yeli, Lisanne, Jake, Justin, Colin, David, Tom, Bilnd, Nikeeta, and all the other abstract artists grafting hard in NFTs right now. Also, special shout out to Guido Disalle, who was laughed at for stating he’d sell his artwork Poolside for 33 ETH then, admirably, did exactly that. Guido is a highly successful cryptoartist and yet still sleeps on his mom’s sofa, just to look after her. I respect that, and him.

I admire any artist who receives success and remembers where they once were, helps others out, or those who have came from difficulty and are interested in using NFTs for positive social causes, like Jesus Martinez.

Final question, what's next for you as an artist?

After selling my first series Polaroids, many people were telling me to mint more immediately to ‘catch the bull run’. I had hundreds, painted over a year. But I stuck to my guns and didn’t release more for several months. It takes discipline to sit on the sidelines whilst everything’s crazy but it’s about artistic legacy and evolution. I want to be able to look back at Errors in 10-20 years & say, ‘the series was done diligently, is representative of a wide range of my ability & nothing was put out that I was not fully content with’.

So whilst I’m creating every day, I’m taking my time with releasing Errors, and the focus is experimenting, evolving, trying out different styles, palettes and new ways of gestural abstract digital painting. I’m also now thinking ahead to if all the Errors are ever displayed together in the future. There’s only going to be 21 of them and I have plans circling my head around that. But for now, it’s all about making errors.