Minseok Kang, born in 1980 in South Korea and known by his stage name KangCar, has been passionate about cars since childhood. He studied Fine Arts at Dong-A University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 2007 and a master's degree in 2010.
Speaking of his artistic style, he wrote: "Over time, my artwork has shifted from emphasizing the outer beauty of the car to depicting my unique style, incorporating elements of time, space, relationships, and culture."
Currently, KangCar depicts distorted car shapes “symbolizing the modern generation’s pursuit of happiness and the path of self-made success amid fierce competition” using acrylic resin, a technique of scraping paint with a squeegee, combined with embroidery of artificial straight lines, speed and time shapes.
KangCar has exhibited and collaborated with numerous shows including the 2017 Jeonnam Motorcycle Festival, MINI Motors, Hyundai Motors, and more.
OpenSea: We’d love to start with a macro question about your art. Who or what are your biggest inspirations and influences when creating?
KangCar: I primarily utilize the visual beauty of cars, but I capture the narrative of my inner self in my artwork. I use a variety of techniques and painting styles to depict the power of a car hurtling forward with unresolved force amidst the uncertainty of the future and inner conflict. By taking the distorted form of a car traveling at high speed, I aim to have the vehicle represent the shadow of my identity, inner desires, and anger - the beast within.
I remember meeting Chuichi Kojima, a Japanese professional racing driver who won the Ferrari European Challenge Finali Mondiali Mugello around 2015.
When I was with him, I felt his strong inner energy. Through the experience of driving a vintage classic Porsche 356a Speedster, I have been trying to explore the meaning of the connection between people and cars. Racing with competitive cars has allowed me to try to express speed and power through art.
OpenSea: Can you tell us about your artistic background and how you got into the world of web3 and NFTs?
KangCar: I started getting familiar with web3 in January 2022 and created my first collection on OpenSea through OrangeHare.io in Korea. In the NFT space, my goal is to approach my work with a fresh perspective different from traditional painting, resulting in my current series of works titled "Scoops of Nostalgia".
In the process of making art, there is often an accumulation of excess residual materials - paint chips, paper cutouts, drips, etc. Over a long period of time, I collect these remnants and meticulously shape them into different forms, documenting this transformation through stop-motion photography, which becomes a tangible manifestation of the interconnected nature of time and memory.
To me, it's like a permanent ice cream cone that will exist on the chain forever: forever spinning, never melting.
Ice cream symbolizes sweetness and freshness, and through this representation, I tried to express the beauty of time, the beauty of memory, and eternal happiness. In addition, I wanted to show new possibilities in the field of NFT. Since then, I have been actively involved in art platforms such as OpenSea, Foundation, MakersPlace, etc.
OpenSea: What was the inspiration behind your new series “Scoops of Nostalgia”? Do you feel this series represents a departure or evolution from your previous work?
KangCar: At first, I captured the front of the ice cream through photos, however, the beauty of its tail and side profile was so fascinating that I decided to suspend it in the air and rotate it 360 degrees. As a result, the expression range of the ice cream was expanded.
In the early days of NFTs, there was often a case of destroying art to increase the scarcity of its digital counterpart, however, I believe that by keeping both physical and digital pieces of my ice cream artwork, the boundaries between the real and virtual realms can coexist, and therefore, I create both physical art and NFT art.
Ice cream is a much-loved dessert, however, it is more than just a dessert, it embodies a presence that resonates with our memories and nostalgia, and through my ice cream creations, I aim to spark people’s imaginations and evoke their cherished memories.
To bring this vision to life, I added bright colors to the background to express the aesthetic, composed music so people could imagine the flavor through the sound, and collaborated with different musicians to present artwork that uniquely expressed the personality of each ice cream cone. I put a lot of effort into constantly refining and improving the overall quality of my work.
“Scoops of Nostalgia” is not just a simple photo or painting, it is a complex combination of various elements, therefore, I spent quite a lot of time coordinating all these elements, including the form of the ice cream, the background, the music, etc.
Although ice cream is my representative subject, I also create various subjects such as flowers, supermarkets, and moving cars in my original paintings. If an object has special meaning to me, I will not impose any restrictions on its expression.
“Scoops of Nostalgia” is a collection of my childhood memories, I believe that as time goes by, memories of happiness, sadness, love will transform and distort, becoming simpler, my own childhood memories have also become simpler, I choose to express them through the unique flavors and imaginative forms of ice cream.
Likewise, I have been working on experimental endeavors that can be presented to the public offline, I have previously experimented with combining holographic technology and space cards to incorporate augmented reality (AR) into the virtual and physical spaces of my work, and may continue to do so in the future.
Through NFT, I hope to enable the experience of artworks created in virtual space to transcend into the physical realm. Furthermore, I am eager to promote the sharing of artworks created in physical space in virtual space. I believe that by connecting web3 and real space, we can provide more experiences and opportunities for people around the world.
OpenSea: Who or what excites you right now in the web3 and NFT space?
KangCar: As I continue to dabble in web3, I’ve been really amazed, especially this year, by the influx of countless open source creations, including images and videos that leverage AI.
Take Damien Hirst’s “spin-generate” works as an example, which adopts a strategy of mass production and sales, freely moving between the original and digital realms. In addition, his experimental move to destroy thousands of physically produced works shows that NFTs are born with values that are closer to conceptual art.
However, although such efforts have attracted attention, they do not seem to have successfully changed the current development direction of the NFT field. This may be attributed to the high emphasis on the artistic centrality of individual creators, but I believe that if artists explore and create in a more diversified way and solidify their artistic concepts, it will definitely trigger a new art trend.
OpenSea: As the NFT and web3 ecosystem continues to grow, what developments or trends are you most interested in? How do you see them shaping the future of web3 art?
KangCar: I will continue to pay attention to the evolving web3 ecosystem. Whenever various advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, AR/VR, etc. emerge, I feel novel and excited. In addition, I expect NFT art that integrates multiple technologies to become more diversified.
However, while NFTs gained a lot of attention in early 2022 with numerous artists participating, the current situation shows the disappearance of many artists, which I attribute to the rapid development of market trends, resulting in shorter lifespans and less attention to new works.
So while I’m curious to see how the atmosphere plays out in 2024, I acknowledge that this is an aspect that we can’t control.
Finally, I believe that for artists who have been engaged in artistic expression for a long time, showing satisfying works and constantly experimenting with media are essential for growth. Looking back at 2023, many events happened in the blink of an eye. NFT represents a new attempt for artists, providing artists with the opportunity to expand their areas of expression and promote growth. Therefore, I believe that it is crucial to strengthen this field and move towards digital art.
I had a great time introducing my art world and “Scoops of Nostalgia” to OpenSea, thank you so much!
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