“When I started minting NFT’s, it suddenly all clicked for me”
- in conversation with Noortje Stortelder
Noortje Stortelder is a visual artist based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She works with different techniques and various media, while also combining them constantly. The digital follows up on the analogue but can also be a new source of inspiration for a cut-out collage, for example. In conversation with Nina Knaack she talks about her artists’ journey and how making NFT’s suddenly gave her what she had been looking for all along.
Published on Culture3.xyz
Noortje (1986) studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam from 2006 to 2010. Before that, she briefly did commercial design. In her first year at the Academy, she focused on lifestyle and design but quickly found out that making autonomous art suited her better. “My work was not at all made with a selling point of view. I was not commercial enough.” Three years of artistic research and practice followed, with graduating as a sculptor as a result. “Back then I actually only made sculptures, and not digital art. I loved working with my hands and learning more about specific crafts. Together with my artistic partner I made big physical 3D works out of latex and rubber.”
Noortje’s graduation work
After her graduation as an artist, Noortje decided to do another study. “This time something where you really had to learn from books. For some reason I felt like I needed that, as if that was ‘actually studying’ and art school didn’t count. But soon after starting the sociology bachelor I noticed that I couldn’t live without creating. That’s when I knew that my destiny is to make things, all the time.”
“I felt like I had to make things, non-stop.”
However, making enormous installations and sculptures isn’t easy if you don't have the space and the materials at hand. “Since I was quite short on money but felt that I had to make things somehow, I started making 2D works. I had my laptop and I had Photoshop on it, so that’s the medium I decided to use. In the beginning this resulted in very raw collages. I stole photos from the internet and used them as parts of my assemblages. Of course I knew that wasn’t really correct, but I sort of felt rebellious towards the internet culture. Everybody was just putting everything out there and I felt a need to then use it to make something new. Eventually, I did research when you were allowed to reuse other people’s images and when you totally reform them to an extent that they’re not recognizable anymore, it’s alright.”
Early 2D works Voyeurism is participation & Pleasant to be alive
Even though the medium that Noortje started to work in now was very different from what she used to do, the working process very much felt the same for her. “Sculpturing consists of working with layers of clay and other materials, constantly building new pieces on each other. I would also make prints of body parts, paste that on the physical sculpture and then make new molds and forms of that again. In Photoshop you actually do exactly the same: add on, redesign, reprint, cut, paste; again and again. It all felt very familiar and it also felt really good to be in the process of making something again.”
From that moment onwards, Noortje started to produce a lot of works. “Besides making my own digital collages I also worked a lot with musicians and dancers, making their video clips or posters for performances. “The dancers gave me a lot of new inspiration with regards to working with the human body as a starting point. They showed me how you can use a body and all its parts. Also, music can be another great inspiration for me, especially with regards to the emotions I feel and trying to capture those feelings in my artwork.”
“Overall you can say that my work is always about transformation; the transitions between humans and nature and their unique structures.”
Noortjes biggest artistic influences come from Auguste Rodin and Hans Bellmer. “Overall you can say that my work is always about transformation; the transitions between humans and nature and their unique structures. Body language is fascinating to me. Your posture is an underestimated form of communication. They present you something without words and there are a lot of emotions involved. I once had a very vivid dream about human bodies and I’ve been trying to visualize that in my work ever since.”
Nature has been another early source of inspiration, since her parents always took the family out to the forest and framed what they were seeing all around them. “Also, the older I get, the bigger small things become for me. One leaf can now be such a magnificent thing for me to experience, whereas before I would probably have focused on the tree as a whole.”
Her 2D works were part of several exhibitions over time, printed and framed. Sometimes Noortje would sell a print but she always kept feeling ‘this is not it yet’. “I had to work in bars at night to make my living. In the mornings I would then create. I was quite frustrated about this from time to time but the urge to make things still stayed. So I kept on going.”
‘What do I have to lose?’ I thought to myself
Then the big Beeple sale happened (March 2021) and several people texted Noortje with the question if she shouldn’t do something with NFT’s. She had briefly heard about it through another platform but didn’t know much about it yet. “Since multiple friends drew my attention to it, I decided to research it. ‘What do I have to lose?’ I thought to myself.” With a big f* it mentality, she created a wallet on the Ethereum blockchain and started putting some work on OpenSea. She minted a series from 2017, called Bugs (now Crypto Bugs), and started a Twitter account. After a month or so, Noortje reacted to a tweet by a ‘dark art’ profile that said ‘Show me your Dark Art’. Noortje posted her work in a reaction and soon after got a message from a collector saying that he was very interested in her work. “He then pretty much immediately bought it as well and for the first time I felt the recognition I had missed all these years.”
Cypto Bugs Bumblebee & Butterfly
After that, Noortje was motivated to learn more about and work further within Web3. She watched a lot of YouTube videos (by Gary Vaynerchuk amongst others) about how to market your NFT’s and how to build a community in the space. She then came in contact with Yam Karkai from World of Women and got an invitation for Foundation through her. Besides that, she started minting on Tezos. “Sometimes I make these quick and raw images/collages that might feel slightly unfinished but are actually quite interesting visuals. Those I drop on Tezos and this gives me great freedom. Other works that have a long making process or are part of a bigger collection I put on Ethereum.”
Objkt, minted on Tezos
But whichever blockchain she uses, Noortje feels like she found her ‘crew’. “When I started minting NFT’s, it suddenly all clicked for me. There are people out there that are actually interested in my work. They like it and they also want to pay for it. I guess I always felt that I didn’t really belong in the Dutch, traditional art world. My work has a touch of fantasy and that doesn’t really have a place here or in the big museums. However, in other parts of the world it’s much appreciated and that feels amazing.”
I love to use the blockchain technique as a new medium. It gives you so many different possibilities.
After almost 1,5 years in crypto, she is still very grateful for the community she found within the Web3 art world. “The internet gave me a lot. It was first a starting point to make art again, the 2D works in Photoshop, and now I’m distributing my own collections and new creations all over the world. I love to use the blockchain technique as a new medium. It gives you so many different possibilities. For example working with different layers and minting different versions of a work.” Noortje also sees making NFT’s as a way to overlay her physical work. If she creates a sculpture, she then fragments certain elements from it to reshape it in a digital art piece for example. Crypto art and physical art are therefore definitely related for her, not clearly distinctive. “They complement each other.”
Elf, still to be minted
Bear market or not, Noortje has total confidence in Web3 and NFT’s. “I actually think that this time is perfect to create a lot of new work. As long as you stay active on Twitter and Discord at all times, I think you’ll get there with the community you built and are still building. I never felt so strongly about my art as now, since it gets worldly recognition. This was what I was looking for.”