We recently connected with V Holecek and have shared our conversation below.
V, appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
I don’t know if there’s a way to misunderstand something that is not really made to be understood in the first place. I suppose the assumption that there’s a narrative involved is the misconception I encounter more than any other.
There is no narrative and I’m not really trying to tell a story. There is only really the composition and a vignette of a state of mind. I want you to feel something about that moment. Usually something visceral.
V, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
…For the uninitiated, I am a niche artist of the surrealist persuasion working with dark visual themes in multiple disciplines. Some would probably say I’m cursed. Apparently in my part of the city I’ve become part of some of the local lore that manifests through the gossip ecosystem.
For technical purposes, I will tell you that I have been drawing since I was old enough to hold my own crayons without eating them. Over the years this has taken to various mediums and disciplines, but at the end of the day I’m still just a kid making things, despite the fact that I’m closing in on my 49th birthday as of this writing.
For most of your readers, what I do will be largely useless. I don’t make the kind of anodyne artwork that pairs with furnishings or ties the room together. My goal is to create visual centerpieces for the kind of people who probably utilize safe words. Its not meant to blend into the background; it is meant to be noticed.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
I didn’t realize they were still relevant enough to have a viewpoint on. Literally the only people still talking about NFTs in 2026 are the scammers who find their way into my junk mail inbox.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I don’t know that I’m necessarily the best person to ask, although I do seem to have a small but dedicated cult following for my various art-related social media profiles, I don’t think the sum total of them breaks 3000 followers altogether…not controlling for the people who follow me across multiple platforms.
I told you I was niche. I don’t even necessarily dislike my niche, but it does make marketing kind of a pain in the ass.
It probably doesn’t help that I am entirely too suspicious of buying advertising…social media is so flooded with bot accounts these days that I could never be sure that I wasn’t just being assigned a bunch of bot followers in response to shelling out money to run an ad campaign.
If you’re just now getting started on social media…I think you’re arriving right at the event horizon of the “dead internet”, where most social media interactions are just bots and other AI-driven accounts, and until those entities can earn paychecks I don’t think they’re going to be good for much else than the emptiest ego-stroking possible. They comment what they comment because that’s what they’re scripted to do.
Still, its a thing we kind of all have to do at the moment, so if I had to offer one singular piece of advice above all else, it would be to cultivate a fucking personality. Not in the typical “influencer” way, because people are kind of starting to see through that vapid bullshit.
You need to figure out what you are about and lean into that. For me, it was apparently just settling into my anachronistic tendencies and just letting people gossip.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.schamballah.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vholecekart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vholecekart/
