We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paulaidan Minerva. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paulaidan below.

Paulaidan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been a fan of immersive art. art splattered on the sides of buildings, benches that are sculpted in a unique way, interactive art jungle gyms for kids. Growing up in New York, I was blessed to be surrounded by and see so many works of experiential art. Art that brings the audience into its world, at least a little bit. Even before I knew I was an artist, I think these kinds of art exhibits are what I’ve aspired to. Somewhere deep in my soul.

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on was my first solo show. At my sisters insistence I reached out to the Gallery Eola and began a dialogue about having a show there. at that point in time I’d had work in galleries around town with other groups of artists but never by myself. I also back then was known for my tiny art, if you can believe it (chuckles). When I spoke with Mike from the gallery, he said ” we love your art, but you can’t fill a gallery with tiny art. Can you make it bigger?” This was honestly the first time I’d considered enlarging my work in years (Not since my styrofoam phase). “Give me a month” I said.
I quit my job and got to work.

For this project I got wood from wherever I could find it, including but not limited to a whole pallet which may have been borrowed from a construction site. I cut and sanded and painted. I created a whole theme “The End of the World” (creative, I know). The rough narrative, though not told in words, was of lizard people infiltrating our ranks and influencing our trajectory on a societal scale leading eventually to a predicted and tragic ruin in present times. I mounted all the work and positioned it on the walls, then set about painting more of the story onto the walls of the gallery itself. To date it was my most immersive show and one of the most meaningful events of my artistic life.

I got to create a world and bring people into it. I didn’t tell anyone what it was about, I let them speculate wildly. It’s my favorite thing. This show gave me the opportunity to expand my methods and medium of creation several times over. From making only micro ink drawings to full size and even oversize paintings, making things out of wood, and murals that interact with the paintings they surround. I learned and grew so much through this. All of these things directly led to the work that I make to this day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

A little bit about me, my specialty is abstract, surreal, and strange art. One of my personal life goals as an artist is to be able to create balanced, artificial randomness. I began in pen on paper, and still find that the most natural form of creation for me. I enjoy creating things that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in fact, I prefer letting the audience make their own conclusions as to the meaning of my work whenever possible.

My art is very busy, very meticulous, crowded, random. But it also has a flow, a hidden vision, an inner beauty when you look at it as the sum of its parts rather than as each individual bit. My work is my escape from the world today, and also my commentary on it, my processing of it. When I go out in the world, I see vibrance and beauty, but I also see stifling greed, unnecessary violence, selfishness and ignorance on parade. I turn inward and release all that anxiety the world can create, and it flows creating a tapestry, not altogether different from the world around me, busy, complicated, meticulous, random, yet still with a flow, still with a pulse.

All this is to say, what I create is a balance between vision and creative impulse. Emphasis on the Impulse. I always liked creating things but never planned on becoming an artist. As my life continued and things changed, creation remained one of the only constants. Still it took a while to realize that was the direction I wanted to go and to decide to make a career out of it.

I studied marketing. Moved up to New York, tried to found a business with my best friend, and moved back to Florida. Art developed throughout, and was something that carried me through all that upheaval and tumult. When I came back to Florida I had the time to design and release a coloring book from my existing body of work. (The things I had created while I was in New York) Selling that coloring book brought me back to Orlando, where I ended up finding opportunities to show some of the work I had created up to that point. The first feature I had was when I got to make a Styrofoam room, filled with all my Styrofoam art and Styrofoam peanuts, and pedestals made from stacked Styrofoam coolers. This affirmed to me that there would be a place in the world for more of my work. So I stayed, and I continued to make and show work.

From there I continued to paint whatever I could get my hands on, including creating commissioned art pieces and also painting a Mears Taxi cab that drives around Orlando still. These days I’ll take a commission painting just about anything.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal in the relative short term is to paint murals on as many things as I can. to get more public art in the public eye. to brighten up our grey asphalt world. I think art helps mental health. Both in creating and in viewing. I believe a public surrounded by more art on their buildings and streets leads to better mental health. So that’s definitely the main goal for now. My loooonger term goal is to create giant metal sculptures. In front of corporate buildings, in public parks, on city streets, in the suburbs even if they’d let me. Create monolithic massive metal creations that will stump future archaeologists and create ideas of false worship to people that know nothing else about our by then long gone culture.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think there are different ways to look at NFTS. As a method of recording progeny of work, digital and even physical, it could be very useful. keeping a record of who had the piece and when it changed ownership every time digitally, on the block chain. It’s a public record that can’t be faked or altered. The technology behind it is sound. However, using NFTs as digital stocks to be collected and traded, I just don’t think that it’s their time yet. there’s nowhere we can appreciate these arts in all their glory– yet. although with AR tech getting better and better it may be just a matter of time before NFTs as digital art become more practical. I’m not a fan of the inflating and dumping of NFT collections, but these kind of things happen in stocks, they happen in crypto, and heck they even happen in good ol’ currency arbitrage, so even though it’s scummy it’s nothing new.

Contact Info:

• Website: paulaidanminerva.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pabloadan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulaidanMinerva