For this week’s Spotlight, we sat down with Finnish painter and digital artist Mikko Lyytinen.
Mikko’s works range from large abstract and expressive oil paintings to surreal, finely detailed digital drawings and are inspired by nature and spirituality as much as technology and progress. Influence can come from any direction, from ancient myths to everyday experiences. Chaos, change, and growth have been some of the main underlying subjects throughout his work, which range from large abstract, expressive oil paintings to fantastic and surreal digital drawings.
In this interview, we got to go a little deeper into his influences, how he came to NFTs, and how his career is evolving.
MP: Can you tell me about your background as an artist?
ML: I guess it was quite early on that I thought I was going to be an artist. It wasn’t quite clear what exactly it was going to be, but I did draw a lot in school — on the sides of notebooks and the backs of tests, that kind of thing. But it was still quite the journey to becoming an artist.
I dropped out of high school and did my military service for a while. Then I got into a vocational school for communications and fine arts, though the fine arts side was pretty light. It was mostly graphic design, photography, and video production.
After that, I spent quite a few years trying to get to a real art school, but I was still kind of clueless about how things worked. I got into this six-month workshop for unemployed youth. It was intended to keep us waking up early and busy, but we had access to education, materials, and activities around painting, printmaking, drama, drumming — all kinds of things. I was encouraged there to pursue art, and I went to a private college for a year.
It was amazing, like finally, real artmaking. Every day, you’re there in the studio and getting instruction. At that point, it was the best year of my life. After that, I got into a four-year art school and got a B.A. in Fine Arts in 2011. I’ve been making art ever since.
I specialized in painting, which I’ve been doing for the bulk of my career. I learned about blockchain in 2016 and started leaning more toward digital art. In 2018, I minted my first NFT. I joined MakersPlace in 2020 and have been able to make a lot of work, so it’s been great.
MP: Have you digitized any of your paintings, or are your NFTs wholly digital?
ML: Mostly digital. I wanted to [digitize my paintings] when I first got into it, but I thought staying exclusively digital was the way to go. But I’ve since relaxed, and I got some paintings now on OpenSea. And there’s actually an entire exhibition of my paintings on Rarible.
MP: Are your non-subjective, color pieces you sell on OpenSea a new direction for you? They seem a departure from your main body of work.
ML: I’ve been a painter for most of my…
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