Side by Side — A 15-Year Collaboration with Shantell Martin

Shantell Martin and I first met in Tokyo in 2007. At the time, she was deeply embedded in Japan's avant-garde club scene, performing live analogue and digital visuals, and I was working across motion graphics and experimental projection. We recognised something in each other's practice — a shared commitment to the drawn line, to improvisation, and to the space where fine art meets technology.

What started as a conversation has become a 15-year creative partnership spanning NFTs, physical exhibitions, augmented reality, and collaborative prints.

Side by Side — Design District, London, 2021

In October 2021, we presented Side by Side at a new space in London's Design District on the Greenwich Peninsula. It was our first physical exhibition together since meeting in Tokyo, and it brought together both retrospective pieces and new collaborative work.

The show included wall-based canvases, framed limited edition prints, video installation, projection, and augmented reality. Shantell's fluid, spontaneous line drawings occupied one register while my typographic networks and generative systems occupied another. The exhibition made visible what we'd always sensed — that our practices, while formally distinct, share a deep structural affinity. Both of us treat mark-making as a primary language.

Alongside the exhibition, we presented an In Conversation event at Reference Point, a cultural space on the Strand, where we discussed our individual careers, the books that have inspired us, and the nature of long-term creative collaboration.

Bowie 1976 — Playboy x Shantell Martin, 2021

One of the most distinctive projects to emerge from our collaboration was Bowie 1976 — a collection of three original NFTs created in association with Playboy, inspired by the September 1976 Playboy Interview with David Bowie.

Shantell led the creative vision, drawing on the most provocative parts of the interview. I worked as creative director on the project, piecing together the layout and animation — interweaving Shantell's drawings with Bowie's words and Andrew Kent's original photographs from 1976.

The collection launched as part of Nifty Pride on Nifty Gateway, with all proceeds from primary sales going to GLAAD. Playboy also donated an additional $15,000 to support the organisation's mission. It was a project that felt significant — not just as a creative exercise, but as an opportunity to use the NFT medium in service of something meaningful.

Lapidarist — Nifty Gateway, 2022

Our third NFT collection, Lapidarist, dropped through Nifty Gateway in June 2022. The title refers to someone who cuts, polishes, or engraves gemstones — an apt metaphor for how we work together, refining raw forms into something faceted and precise.

The three works — Absence, Presence, and Transience — deconstruct and transform abstracted three-dimensional structures floating in space. Each form hovers between imagination and reality, contributing to what we described as a monolithic atmosphere.

My process on these pieces was deliberately generative. I used exploded primitives and virtual physics to form the base structures, keeping the design from becoming overly conscious. Then we shared files and Shantell decorated them with animated versions of her drawings. The fluid workflow we've developed over the years allows us to create freely and without limits — each of us responding to what the other has introduced.

What Collaboration Teaches

Working with Shantell over fifteen years has sharpened my understanding of my own practice in ways that solitary work doesn't. Her process is gestural and bodily — rooted in the physical act of drawing. Mine is systematic and archival — built from research into global writing systems and generative rules. But the collision between these approaches consistently produces something neither of us would arrive at alone.

Shantell once described me as "one of the most visually talented people I know," which is generous — but what I value most about our partnership is the trust it's built on. After fifteen years, we've developed a creative shorthand that makes ambitious projects feel natural rather than laboured.

The collaboration continues. There's always another conversation to have.