Natasha Chomko, aka Postwook is a young digital artist based in Los Angeles. In her surreal collages where space is omnipresent she combines pieces of landscapes from all over the world to demonstrate how interconnected we all truly are.
Natasha challenges perception of shapes, color and texture to create entirely new universes out of pre-existing photos.
Natasha picked up collage in 2007 after drawing and painting didn’t feel quite right, and always stayed close to the medium. After completing university with a degree in Political Science and working on a political campaign, Natasha felt creatively starved and sought out an outlet, once more turning back to collage.
As a self taught artist, she never intended to become a professional artist but now strongly believes in the importance of therapeutic and self taught art.
I started making art when I was a kid but never considered myself to be an artist. I thought artists needed to be really good at painting, drawing, or something physical. I didn’t even consider digital art at the time. I made a lot of collage work and was fascinated by printmaking, and continued making collages into college. As I grew up, I didn’t even realize how often I was able to be creative until I no longer had a creative outlet. I sought one out so badly that I figured out how to use Photoshop on my phone at first, and then later moved to a computer.
My dad has worked for NASA since well before I was born. I grew up with space all around me. I find space exploration and the aesthetics of space to be fascinating. Everyone can see space even with the naked eye. I love how there’s so much about space we still don’t know, it’s almost a humbling reminder that we are human.
Cryptoart and the larger web3 ecosystem is great. It’s really rewarding to connect with a collector who likes my work and have an exchange that’s really them saying, “hey, I like your work enough to support your journey here.” It’s also great to be able to circulate my digital artwork in a digital format. For years prior to web3, I sold lots of prints. They were great, but I was transforming my digital work into physical forms to make a living. Even when I was doing it I would think “there has to be a way to do this digitally” and cryptoart is that solution. People display my work on screens in their homes, on various electronic device screens, and in digital frames. There’s still a long way to go in terms of mass adoption here, most people don’t understand the benefit of collecting digital art since they can just view it for free. A lot of the cryptoart scene is essentially like fine art but with digital work. Anyone can go to a museum or a gallery and look at art, and for some, that’s all they’ll ever want. But some people want the satisfaction of owning that piece of artwork, not just looking at it.
The future will come when people see the benefits of cryptoart as something to participate in, not just watch from the sidelines. As more people see art as a “membership ticket” or affirmation for an artist’s career, they’ll start to understand what’s going on and get involved – whether they realize it or not.
My experiences in life are my most recent influences. I’ve been through a lot in my life, and my emotions, memories, and experiences fuel my art. I use art as a way to process and let go of these past experiences. I love being outside, so natural landscapes guide my structure and lighting in my work.
I make everything in Photoshop with a little bit of Lightroom.
No, I think there are different strokes for different folks. I don’t think that there’s a right or wrong way to go about a creative process as long as you’ve got your own ideas, style, and voice. Some people can make art under the influence, but I definitely cannot.
I do commercial work with clients, have an ecommerce website, and I sell my work as cryptoart to make a living!
I’ve done a few collaborations! They’re fun, it’s really interesting to see the work come together from two different brains. I recently did a collaboration with photographer Rich Caldwell, and it was really interesting to make a piece with an aerial photographer!
No, it won’t. Photography didn’t replace portrait paintings, there’s no reason to think that digital art will replace traditional art. Technological innovation will ever fully eclipse traditional art, it’ll just give people new avenues for creativity. This world needs more creativity! As many avenues as we can have, we need!
I am working on two longer term projects at the moment, and next year I’ll continue to build my base in the cryptoart world and through e-commerce channels. A lot of things feel like they’re coming to fruition right now and I’m in the middle of the storm but I’ll get through it!
