Unskilled Interviews: Numa of Gate Nu
The incredible Brazilian designer behind my favorite NFT collab series
Numa is the epitome of what I love about NFTs. Iβm here for iconic art; her Gate Nu set instantly grabbed me when I discovered it at the end of January. Simultaneously familiar, bold and unpredictable.
But also: NFTs are a great place to find friends and Iβve loved becoming friends in that time. It turns out that the design of these sharp-toothed kitties is so iconic because of refinement over many years.
βItβs a real life pfp haha,β Numa told me back in February.
Numa kicked off the set with a lot of their own art - but has since used the set to showcase excellent artists from around the NFT world. Pinkyblu, DENY (of Dirty Toys), Gengoya (of BWOPLE, auction ends today) - but also a wide variety of styles, including illustration, photography, VR scuplture and animation.
I had to know more. So hereβs my chat with Numa.
Gate Nu has been a character of yours for seven years. Many people would perhaps get bored or move on to other designs in that time. Iβm impressed by your attachment to this character. What is it about Gate Nu that keeps you going?
In the Graffiti scene, the writers are always searching for a signature because the goal is being recognized wherever our artwork is. Since I am a child I have been in love with cats, because they are animals with strong personalities, although they are cute they can be great hunters and aggressive too.
Also, something that influenced me are the lyrics of βGato Congeladoβ (something like βFrozen Catβ in English), an MC from the group Ordem Natural, who has also been part of Subsolo and Quinto Andar.
When I started to draft my ideas for my own tag I created vida de gato (cat's life), a few years later I started to enjoy drawing some demons and it resulted in me putting everything together and from there came Gate Nu (gatE to be genderless in Portuguese). They are my character, carrying the name Nu which is also one of my nicknames and represents all of this artistic trajectory that I have lived.
Oh wow. That history is woven into Gate Nu! You can really see it in how strong the design is - you have really refined it over time. So wait, tell me about the demons - is Gate Nu a kind of cat demon or something?
Yeah, both. The first idea was a demon and then merged with the cat's inspiration. I always wanted to create scary demons but my things always go to cute ways hahahaha I think Gate Nu is a good balance of evil and cuteness.
To me, you seem to be incredible at collaboration. Somehow, Gate Nu manages to be a set full of artist contributions - and yet it feels very cohesive, it all meshes together so well!
Like I really think it's the most incredible collaborative set out there. I'm blown away with what you've done in around 50 pieces. (Especially when so many people want NFT collections that don't all look the same.) How do you manage to bring all of this artwork - all of these contributions - together into one collection?
It was the NFTs that provided me with this large amount of collabs. The first one I did was with my friend from Turkey @monsterdefiner2, he's also the person who got me into the Solana blockchain. Since then I've been enjoying working with other artists, I think this possibility is amazing to be able to exchange and unite styles.
The Gate Nu project was born spontaneously, I had already thought that my graffiti character resembled a real-life PFP. It wasn't supposed to be the first collection in Solanas, but since I couldn't finish some of the paintings I was working on I took a chance and it worked out great.
I called @Pinkyblu_ to be the first person to join and after that, it grew fastly. Besides having been super well received the participations, many people came to talk to me that were interested in being part of the collection.
That's where my work as a curator comes in, I oriented and created a method to facilitate the creation of the Gates and organized the drops to make it easier to understand.
Currently, I'm only releasing collabs because I was working on my new collection βEntidades Encantadasβ and also editing a book (I still do some work as a graphic designer). I have ideas for a collection to be released when I get back from vacation, some cats inspired by nature felines.
I'm pretty happy with how everything has been going on.
I feel what you are saying - there is a kind of excitement and togetherness with artists in NFTs. It's odd because I would expect it to be very competitive - after all, you are sharing "customers" with each other.
However, I've wondered if part of the reason why NFT artists support each other is because of the stigma that is currently placed on the NFT world. Do you know what I mean? Like many artists out there passionately hate NFTs. Which means that artists who embrace NFTs have risked something to be here.
But I don't know - is it like that in Brazil? Are NFTs very controversial there?
Everything new is scary, just like the internet in the beginning was criticized, parents used to be scared by the pages their children accessed, today they are totally connected to the social networks.
Here in Brazil there are also many people (artists or not) criticizing the NFTs without having an exact notion of what it is. There is a lot of laziness in the search, because it is something very based on "social bubbles" so people give up going after it easily.Β It's all a matter of time until it grows more, it's already huge and just has to evolve a lot more.
What bothers me a lot is the environmental criticism. As a person who is considerably active in this cause here where I live, I find this false symmetry absurd. It is not possible that people criticize artists who finally manage to sell their own art, even more in our country that had the Ministry of Culture closed and several absurd political actions due to the current government that is cruel and totally closed to art.
And all these people who criticize, what movements are they helping? Are they separating garbage? Are they planting trees? Are they spreading the word and helping the indigenous people? I don't see this, I only see criticism.
Itβs just so easy to criticize and so much harder to create. Many donβt realize what kind of effort goes into pulling off a quality project.
What artists inspired you growing up?
My first and foremost inspiration has always been and will always be my parents Rita & Manoel, they have always encouraged me to consume art, respecting and helping me when I decided to work with it.
I have inspirations from several places and types of media. From Graffiti some of my first inspirations were Yubia (Barcelona), Fafi (France) and @shiro_one (Japan, who is also in NFTs now).
It is hard to list them all because I have contact with many amazing artists, my country is also full of very talented graffiti artists, like Criola (Belo Horizonte) and Judit Sweet Crime (Colombo, a city next to mine).
In music I am very inspired by Flying Lotus, Sadiva and Vangelis, who has a very complete work with cinema.
It is impossible to name just a few, for sure my list of inspirations exceeds hundreds and I consider myself a very blessed person in my connections.
You know - it's almost become a truth that graffiti artists make the best NFTs. I've always wondered if that might be because street artists make art for a public audience - so they learn quickly what works and what doesn't. But I don't really know if that's true!
So like - do you feel like graffiti art prepared you for NFTs somehow?
I think what prepared me best for NFTs was being a very internet-connected person since childhood and my professional experience as a freelance designer. Graffiti is my artistic base, but I think to experience the market around here are other kinds of skills.Β
Gate Nu is on Exchange.Art. Keep up with Numaβs work on Twitter @numadessas.