Portrait #15 : Vladimir Net the pixel art artist who is transforming Urban spaces 🤩
Jun 10, 2024
Hello Vladimir Net, could you tell us more about the person behind this pseudonym? And about the choice of this pseudonym?
I live and work in Saint Petersburg.
I create mosaics in the style of pixel art and voxel installations, which I place in urban spaces. In this way, I kind of weave nets (net), in which I catch the attention of passers-by.
The mosaics are usually small in size, made of glass tiles. All the works are stylized, each element is a separate colored pixel. The goal of such stylization is to convey the meaning and idea of the work with minimal visual means, to achieve maximum recognizability of the character or object.
Volumetric installations are created on a large scale. These works remain in the urban space for a long time and attract a lot of attention due to their size and contrast to the surrounding environment.
What was your first contact with urban art? What made you want to get involved in it?
As a teenager, I was involved in graffiti. In my childhood, I lived near a railway along which there were many concrete walls painted with graffiti. Another inspiration for me at that time was the game Getting Up, where a young guy deftly parkoured everywhere writing his nickname.
If you had to define your style in 3 words, what would they be?
Bright, square, bringing a smile
Can you tell us more about your creative process?
Typically, I create mosaic sketches in Adobe Illustrator. Then I assemble them from glass tiles. However, finding the right place can take a lot of time for me. It's important for me that the work fits well into the surrounding environment.
What are your main sources of inspiration?
Cinema, music, cartoons, games, painting.
What is the ideal spot for you to stick your works?
For each work, I try to find its own individual place so that it blends well into the environment.
As an example, one of my works is "The Bathing of the Red Horse".
Can you tell us about your first mosaic (from idea to installation)?
A little backstory, at that time I had just graduated from university from the department of knitwear, in the direction of costume art and textiles. There I had to create drawings on knitted products, from colored yarn. All the sketches looked like pixel art because a drawing on knitwear is the sequential arrangement of loops in a grid in rows and columns.
So at that moment I was already familiar with the work of Space Invader, and decided to make a pixel mosaic on the street like him. The first mosaic was a folder with the inscription PORN, as if I hid it in plain sight.
Which cities and countries have you invaded?
Cities present:
Saint Petersburg
Nizhny Novgorod
Penza
Bratsk
Chita
Novosibirsk
Rostov-on-Don
Alanya (Turkey)
Phuket (Thailand)
Minsk (Belarus)
Do you have an idea of how many mosaics you have installed?
About 130 pieces.
What is your favorite work?
My favorite installation is:
Tsar Koschei
Your wildest dream?
I dream of becoming a world-famous and successful artist.
What are your artistic projects and desires for this year?
I plan to continue with street art, participate in exhibitions, carry out several commercial projects, travel to a few more countries, and install my mosaics there.
And finally, which artist would you like me to interview for the next portrait?
Think Pozitive Crew
Yellow cubik
