Interview with the Internet’s Most Prolific Artist, catswilleatyou | MakersPlace Blog

Jack of all visual arts trades, catswilleatyou (AKA Matt Semke) has cultivated a style all his own through constant experimentation and creation, having created a new piece to post to his site every single day since 2006, making his the longest-running “dailies” streak on earth. During this time, he’s explored nearly every facet of digital art, including early use of gifs as fine art, digital painting, animation, and now AR and VR.  

We had the privilege of interviewing Semke ahead of his first MakersPlace drop, VRy real(ish).

MP: What inspires you to create in VR as opposed to creating in real life but digitally on your iPad or computer?

MS: I’m inspired by being an early artist exploring this medium. This is still the early days of VR art in art history. I felt the same way about digital art and GIFs. It’s also incredible to be completely immersed in your creation. I still create IRL paintings and do tons of digital work on iPads and desktops, but this is just another amazing tool to play with.

MP: How long have you been creating in VR? Do you prefer it? Why?

MS: I’ve been making VR art for about a year and a half. In a lot of ways, I do prefer it to some other ways of creating. It’s great to have infinite studio space, infinite supplies, and zero cleanup to worry about. There’s huge freedom in being able to splash paint and not have to pay for it.

“you swim in your imagination” by catswilleatyou, painted in VR

MP: Do you believe more artists can benefit from creating in VR?

MS: Yes! I feel like right now is a great time to be a VR artist. The community is somewhat small and tightly knit. There are huge advantages to being early. There’s obviously a wow factor you get from showing the work to people that haven’t seen anything like VR before. But the thing that excites me the most is that I can talk directly to the developers of these apps. I can have my suggestions implemented. With a lot of the popular tools on a desktop, you just don’t have that sort of access. 

MP: Where and how do you display your work? In VR? IRL? Anywhere else?

MS: All of my work gets posted online at catswilleatyou.com and all of the popular social media sites, but I absolutely like to spice it up with VR and IRL showings.

I recently designed my own metaverse to showcase these VR paintings. It works in VR headsets, and also on desktop and mobile. It’s called “none of this is real,” and anyone can visit it at cwey.link/NONE 

I’ve done several live performances where I improvise my daily piece in front of a live audience. I’ve also participated in a VR art battle where I took home an amazing championship belt. Outside of VR,  I make short films that end up in little festivals all over the…