*Click for a version in Mandarin

Many artists are using the hype around the NFT space as a new platform to get their work out in front of a wider audience. Riniifish, a young Chinese artist living in Hangzhou, has been making digital art long before this hype around NFTs appeared, but this new platform has helped her break out in the West. Her psychedelic-utopia collection, “M7 planet,” is all about from looking at those smaller and easily missed parts of our existence.

Whether it’s the scale of the Milky Way or the distance between microscopic cells in our bodies, we are often fascinated by things that are either so large or so small that they defy logic. Riniifish’s works play with the idea of the microscopic world just beyond our senses. She depicts bugs and other alien-like creatures inhabiting this strange land and presents them in a palate of highly saturated fluorescent colors. Fluorescent colors are vibrant and rare in the natural world; people who wear them are often trying to stand out and be seen. In Riniifish’s works, Florescence represents an artificial power in the will of individuals struggling against the natural world around them.

All sorts of small, strange creatures shuttle and float about in the bizarre environment of M7 planet. All the elements of this world are illogical, but the creatures are living comfortably in harmony with each other. The scenes that created in each work and way each individual creature fits in these visual stories feels alien, like a science fiction movie; they lie just beyond the reach of our senses. Yet, the alien-ness these works depict is not as far off and removed as it might seem at first glance. The real world of microscopic cells and fungi and viruses is just as strange and foreign to us even though it is found everywhere from the bacteria in a drop of water to the protein structures that make up our bodies. We are not able to perceive it without microscopes, but life at such a small scale is far beyond our imagination.

A lot of contemporary artists, like Riniifish, create art as a means of letting out their emotions. Emotions are messy, and often hard to pin down, but Riniifish works to give these emotional states specific form and character. The odd little characters in her works are often an expression of her negative emotions such as mania and depression and each one carries a specific story behind it. She takes care to stabilize these negative emotions in the world she creates. The more active and colorful these creatures are the more calm the audience feels. The negative emotions in both the artist and the viewer find themselves at home and comforted at last in these painting.

In Riniifish’s works, tiny creatures that are usually overlooked by higher beings are recognized and captured by the artist. We are often attracted by the idea of the “sublime”, but we can’t move forward if we always have our heads in the clouds. Riniifish’s works want people to pay attention to the seemingly insignificant things in life and to one’s inner world. Too many people are caught up in the value they put on what is seen on the surface of things but ignore the importance of understanding our inner world and the role it plays in how we create our personalities. With the constant barrage of information from social media, celebrity gossip, economics, and current affairs, we are encouraged to make time to explore the little things that lie just under out of view under the surface.

Riniifish与她的M 7星球

当下很多艺术家开始借助NFT平台，让作品触及更广泛的观众。Riniifish是一名居住在杭州的年轻中国艺术家，她在NFT兴起前就开始从事于数字艺术，而这个新平台让她的作品在西方也获得越来越多的关注。她通过作品“M7星球”，讲述着微观世界居民的生活和他们身上发生的故事。

世上最令人向往的莫过于最庞大与最微小，最庞大于银河宇宙的璀璨与神秘，最微小于微观世界的动态与奇幻。Riniifish的作品往往描绘了微观世界中的生物与虫子，他们与环境一同，呈现出高度饱和的荧光色彩。荧光色向来是个性的表达，对Riniifish来说荧光色更是我们这些个体对抗喧嚣世界的力量与声音。

各种异样的小生物穿梭在这个诡谲的M7星球中，这个世界中的一切元素都反逻辑，然而它们却和谐又合理地生活着。画中每个生物的外貌，如科幻电影中一般神奇，却可能出现我们日常生活最常见的环境里，出现在墙角的一处尘埃里，或出现在我们身体的结构中，微生物的世界人类远难以窥见，现实生活可能是我们想象力的不可及之处。

当代艺术中不少艺术家都把创作作为一种情感宣泄的方式，波洛克通过狂舞一般的绘画方式喷涌当下的灵感与情绪，康定斯基用点线面和色彩一笔一画地精准雕琢自己的感情，米罗笔下的每个符号和形象有明确的情感指代意义，拼凑出他的内心世界。Riniifish也是如此，创作是她情感的出口，作品中的角色则是她的狂躁、抑郁等负面情绪的具象表现，每个角色都承载着她特定的情绪与情绪背后的故事，她在自己创造的世界中悉心呵护和稳定着这些不安的情绪，这个乌托邦不仅仅是这些小生物的，更是艺术家以及与艺术家有相同情感境遇的人们的归处。

Riniifish作品中这些被高等生物忽略的存在，却被艺术家所关注与记录，我们总是被“崇高”吸引，抬头看月亮，却忘了脚下的六便士。Riniifish的作品更是对内心世界的关注，太多的人只对浮于表面的价值予以关注，往往忽视了个体内心世界的健康及人格的建设，在充斥着社交媒体信息、网红经济与快节奏生活的当下，这种关注似乎显得更为紧迫。