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Spotlight: Digital Artist Raoul Marks Brings Alexander Calder’s Mobiles to Dazzling Life

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What You Need to Know: Raoul Marks is an Emmy award-winning motion graphic designer and artist whose work has appeared in such hit TV shows as Westworld and The Crown. He has also developed a reputation in the digital art world, most recently with his collaboration with contemporary Chinese artist Jia Aili, Valley, Line & Time (2022). Marks is currently represented by Triple X, a company founded by Derrick Li, that aims to curate quality digital projects for an art audience. Li both curated and directed Valley, Line & Timeand also worked with Marks on his newest collaboration, with TRLabs and the Calder Foundation The Calder Question—an NFT project that combines arts education, gaming, and NFT collecting using an interactive online experience.

Why We Like It: The five NFT artworks Marks created based on Alexander Calder’s iconic mobiles are emblematic of both his technical skill and artistic vision. A departure from some of his more narrative works, these NFTs employ Calder’s mobiles as starting points for an explosion of lights that appear like shooting stars or swirling snowflakes. In one of the works, tines (2022), these collections of lights coalesce into shapes like a wishbone before diffusing again into an abstract, eddying mass. The result is a captivating NFT artwork that typifies Triple X’s goal of connecting traditional artworks and collectors with digital art and artists. Furthering this mission and support for Marks’s digital art endeavors, Triple X is planning a solo show of his work in a little over a year’s time.

According to the Gallery: “I’m very pleased to announce Triple X’s global representation of the artist, Raoul Marks. After working together closely over the past year, we are delighted to officially bring this relationship to new levels. Raoul is an outstanding artist and thinker. He is not only a master of his craft, but his understanding of his medium, attention to and study of aesthetics and civilization, and formation of his own aesthetics is what makes him unique in the realm of digital visual art. We can’t be more excited to start conquering this unknown journey together. Triple X is determined to create works and projects that will build new perceptions, and to build the new means of connection between people and art, with all the brilliant minds and souls that we will continually bring together.” —Derrick Li, founder, Triple X

See some of Raoul Marks’ NFT collaborations below.

Still from Snow Flurry (1948/2022).  © 2022 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Still from Snow Flurry (1948/2022). © 2022 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Still from Eucalyptus (1940/2022).  © 2022 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Still from Eucalyptus (1940/2022). © 2022 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Jia Aili x Raoul Marks, Still from Valley, Line & Time (2022).  Courtesy of Triple X.

Jia Aili x Raoul Marks, still from Valley, Line & Time (2022). Courtesy of Triple X.

Jia Aili x Raoul Marks, Still from Valley, Line & Time (2022).  Courtesy of Triple X.

Jia Aili x Raoul Marks, still from Valley, Line & Time (2022). Courtesy of Triple X.

Raoul Marks, The Only Way Is Up (2022).  Courtesy of Triple X.

Raoul Marks, The Only Way Is Up (2022). Courtesy of Triple X.

Learn more about The Calder Question here.

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