1/1 Artist Spotlight: Habiba Green

ONE37pm's 1/1 Artist Spotlight is a series that focuses on giving love to 1 of 1 NFT Artists. Whether they're from the traditional art world or just got started in art through web3, we want to highlight and help you get to know those who are up and coming.

A 1/1 NFT is a unique, one-of-a-kind digital collectible where no other exists other than the piece itself. We hope to introduce you to talented and incredible people in the NFT space and the reasons they love doing what they do.

Habiba Green is a contemporary minimal-realist artist who lives in London, UK. Largely driven by her own experiences. Her universe revolves around themes of anxiety, uncertainty of emotions, loss and regeneration.

ONE37pm had the opportunity to interview the rising artist and learn more about her unconventional start to NFTs, her goals in the space, and more.

How has your artist jour­ney changed since join­ing NFTs? How did you start?  

Back in 2021, I had an in­ter­est­ing and un­usu­al way of dis­cov­er­ing the space. I was  liv­ing com­plete­ly un­aware of the meta­verse and iron­i­cal­ly enough, one of my longest in­tern­ships was about Art & Tech­nol­o­gy.

One day around July of 2021, I received mul­ti­ple dms on my in­sta­gram from peo­ple I didn’t know. I tru­ly thought it was all spam, so I ig­nored them. Un­til an artist and friend that was in the NFT space mes­saged me saying ,"Habi­ba! Your art is be­ing stolen and mint­ed on foun­da­tion, and also the auc­tion is live." I replied, "In a fundrais­er (char­i­ty)! What a shame."

Then she ex­plained every­thing to me and I re­mem­ber my­self en­coun­ter­ing di­verse feelings. I didn’t know what to do. I felt help­less. Then cre­at­ed a twit­ter ac­count and  that same day, the whole com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the #an­i­fam sup­port­ed the cause in­ac­ces­si­bly to take the piece down and we fi­nal­ly did! The funds were re­turned to its bid­der and since then I start­ed to or­gan­ise every­thing to start my jour­ney in  the Space.

I was shocked from the sense of com­mu­ni­ty, com­ing from IG that is  more vis­ual ori­ent­ed with a changed con­cept, it was in­deed heart­warm­ing. I  couldn’t be­lieve that this space tru­ly ex­ist­ed. That same week I sold 5 art­works in one night while I was asleep. The bids were dou­ble its price, also the stolen piece was sold. I couldn’t be­lieve it. I cried of hap­pi­ness. I was the stereo­typ­i­cal full-time  starv­ing artist from web2. I was in debt and that same day I was debt free and surround­ed by the most fun­ny, tal­ent­ed and amaz­ing peo­ple. The good part is as tradi­tion­al artist, I al­ways had a plan B and that plan was to quit if every­thing went  wrong one day. The Space gave me a rea­son to con­tin­ue do­ing what In was born  for. And I'll al­ways be im­mense­ly grate­ful. 

Do you pre­fer phys­i­cal or digi­tal art?

I start­ed work­ing with digi­tal tools in 2021, I used to be a tra­di­tion­al artist. I love  both, but I be­lieve that the use of mixed me­dia is the per­fect com­bi­na­tion to in­tegrate the qual­i­ties of both worlds if that makes sense. 

How would you de­scribe your art style? 

I am fas­ci­nat­ed by the Non-fini­to, the Ital­ian ex­pres­sion that lit­er­al­ly rep­re­sents  which is ap­plied in artis­tic con­texts to works to which an aes­thet­ic val­ue is at tributed pre­cise­ly be­cause of their im­per­fec­tion or lack of fi­nal art. Just like the Japanese phi­los­o­phy of Wabi-sabi, shares one of my main mantras: Im­per­fect, in com­plete, and im­per­ma­nent, like life it­self. To me a form of art and to some a dev as­tat­ing truth. These two con­cepts, helped me de­vel­op my art and also, to helped  me to find en­joy­ment in those art blocks and the frus­tra­tion that comes with this career. The un­fin­ished is like a mem­o­ry, I want to trans­mit to the view­er that in my art work you can al­ways in­ter­pret a dif­fer­ent end. 

Who or what are some of your big­gest in­spi­ra­tions? 

Too many! Clas­si­cal art: Ca­ra­vag­gio, Hen­ri Re­nault, Fran­ci­sco de Goya, John Wil liam Wa­te­rhou­se, John Sin­ger Sar­gent, Dan­te Ga­briel Ro­set­ti, Hie­ro­ny­mus Bo­sch.

Mo­dern: Mark Ro­th­ko, Brid­get Ri­ley, Pi­cas­so, Egon Schie­le, Al­fred Ru­bin, Hop­per,  Klimt, Joan Miró, Man Ray. 

Con­tem­po­ra­ry: Louis De Bor­geois, Yo­shi­ta­ka Ama­no, Sa­to­shi Kon, Da­niel Se­gro­ve,  Guim Tio, Con­rad Ro­set, Pau­la Bo­net, Mar­ti­ne Jo­han­na, Ale­xan­dra Le­vas­seur, Emi lio Vil­lal­ba, Tom Ro­sen­thal, Gil­lian Wea­ring, Ba­squiat. 

What is your favourite piece? 

Above The Fire, 2022. Is a piece made in­tu­itive­ly ex­press­ing an es­tate of obliv­ion.  Is about be­ing hum­bling your­self and to step back even in when in that state is al most im­pos­si­ble. 

What do you hope to ac­com­plish in the next year? 

I would like to get more be­hind the scenes as a cu­ra­tor. I’ve some­thing in­ter­est ing com­ing up for Women’s day. I al­ways try to or­gan­ise some­thing es­pe­cial, as it’s  a day to com­mem­o­rate our his­to­ry. Es­pe­cial­ly as women in the art field, is one of  my most favourite and in­spir­ing dates for me! I’d like to be able to gath­er tal­ent­ed  artists to do some­thing be­yond mon­e­tary rea­sons and more ac­tivism ori­ent­ed.

When do you feel most in­spired to cre­ate? 

When I don’t ex­pect it! A con­ver­sa­tion with a friend is the most pow­er­ful tool for inspi­ra­tion in my opin­ion. Then is when I hide my Cell­phone and iso­late my­self for  days, it comes in waves and I love when it hap­pens. 

Who are 3 artists you have your eyes on at the mo­ment? 

Tony Wall­strom, Shak­ti Gomez and An­ton Mar­rast. Very dif­fer­ent, 3 incred­i­ble tal­ents. To me the most promis­ing in the long term. 

What ad­vice would you give to an artist start­ing in the space right now? 

To take breaks, To stay kind what­ev­er hap­pens and to think long-term. The space is  over­whelm­ing and learn­ing to si­lence the noise to fo­cus is a skill that I think is bene­fi­cial for all. Also to don’t be afraid to par­tic­i­pate in the op­por­tu­ni­ties that the  space brings, we all had a first time in some­thing! 

Would you rather be re­lat­able or as­pi­ra­tional to your au­di­ence? 

I’ve al­ways seen my­self as a per­son that hap­pen to be some­how rel­e­vant with­out  in­ten­tion­al­ly want­i­ng. So def­i­nite­ly re­lat­able even it could be per­ceived the oth­er  way. Most of the big­gest in­flu­ences of our time had be­come as­pi­ra­tional even af­ter  death. My mantra is in­clud­ing “re­al­i­ty” To the mat­ter, so I per­son­al­ly feel clos­er to a  re­lat­able fig­ure. I think both are im­por­tant and de­pend­ing of the au­di­ence, the cate­go­ry goes ac­cord­ing­ly. I think that in the end it doesn’t mat­ter be­cause one finds the oth­er si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Both are es­sen­tial.