OK Cancel x WTVR - 'Dream Bigger'

StevieWTVR
Aug 18, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Nov 14, 2022

Web3 - it’s a pretty crazy place.

You meet and chat with random, at times, anonymous, strangers from various corners of the world - the type of shit your mother warned you never to do as a child.

The fact that you and a bunch of other folks all share a common interest, whether that be in a specific project, or just in NFTs in general, can bring about a sense of camaraderie and community which is hard to explain to others who aren’t really all that involved in the space.

In that sense, I can see how it can be a bit annoying for those who aren’t very interested in it; listening to me badgering on about it like a broken record - but here we are.

What I am sure of, however, one thing that many people can relate to and agree upon - is great art. Regardless of platform or medium: whether on Twitter; in the world of NFTs; in literature; or traditional art galleries - art transcends language and borders.

Now, I understand that art doesn’t necessarily have to interest everyone and even those that do appreciate and enjoy it are all free to have different tastes in what they like - it’s all very subjective.

However, one such creator whose work definitely seemed to tickle my artistically subjective taste buds, was ‘OK Cancel’.

It was a Twitter handle I’d seen it popping up on my timeline a number of times over the weeks and months and with us both being active members of the ‘Thingdoms’ community we had a bit of a common ground.

I’d first came across his art when I noticed him making funky wee gifs of ‘Things’ bashing out beats on a drum machine.

As I started to dive a bit deeper into his work, I found his signature style seemed to focus, possibly a little ironically, on nondescript ‘scenes’ with a vague little sense of humour to them.

Whether it was a waste paper basket sitting in a corner of a room containing a trashed trophy surrounded by some failed paper basketball free throw attempts;

or a frustratingly tangled up pair of iPhone headphones sitting in despair on a desk (thank god for AirPods);

with a very pleasing colour palette and a slight ‘comic book’ feel, conveyed by his use of thick black outlines and cartoon like perspective, this fun and friendly artwork seemed (to me anyway) to be flavoured with a subtle sprinkle of humour topped of with a vague dash of irony for good measure - right up my Strasse.

But along with this light hearted composition, I always felt like each piece seemed to have a bit of a deeper layer to it. I found myself prescribing meaning to his work. Meaning which may or may not have been his intention - but sometimes I like that mystery.

This prescription of ‘meaning’ to a piece of an artist's work is a facet of art that has always intrigued me; the separation between the intention of an artist and the subjective interpretation of the observer.

Ironically enough, this idea is essentially one of the core concepts of my ‘Deeper Meaning’ project I’m currently working on.

But yeah, as I was saying - his art just really seemed to resonate with me and I felt our styles kind of complimented one another. I just knew I had to collab with him somehow.

I decided to reach out and we chatted back and forth for a bit about each other’s artwork and pretty soon we were both clear we wanted to do a little project together, so we went our separate ways to mull over the potential ‘concept’ for a bit.

After some thought, I’d suggested an idea that he could produce one of his signature ‘scenes’, like a living space or something but with some blank picture frames on the wall in which my artwork could perhaps slot in to.

He took the concept to a whole new level and absolutely killed it with what he came back to me with. It gave the concept a much deeper perspective and really got me thinking hard to develop the concept further.

The concept he concocted was the idea of ‘dreaming bigger’ - I loved it.

I feel that no matter what we are doing and where we are in our lives, there is always the opportunity for growth. Dreaming bigger and following that curiosity is where we learn…

We sent the piece back and forth a couple of times to test each other’s reaction to the piece as the process was unfolding. It was a really cool and collaborative process.

I had a lot of fun working on the project from concept to creation and the collaboration was a great chance to challenge my creative juices in order to try and do his piece some justice.

So here we are, the final product…

OK Cancel x WTVR - ‘Dream Bigger’ - I hope you enjoy it as much as I did working on it.

Thanks again to OKC - I had a lot of fun working in this. Hopefully one day we get the chance to do something like this again in the future.

Finally, to top it all off...literally days after we connected and discussed the idea of working on a piece together, OKC announced the upcoming release of a project he’d been working on with his team for some time - 'Lofi Lofts' - a series of insanely detailed, incredible pieces of art in the form of floating loft style residences, created in that instantly recognisable OKC style.