UNDRGRND ARTIST: MATASUTU & MATABOLONG
MARCH 31ST, 2023
Each week 100 NFTs are minted and randomly airdropped to UNDRGRND Membership Cardholders. To find out how you can be featured as an UNDRGRND Artist check out our Discord.
Indonesian creator of Matasatu & Matabolong created an entire world on par with the whimsical nature perfected by Studio Ghibli.
Matasatu is a shape-shifting, one-eyed, animal creature. Matabolong is a plant-based shapeshifter with hollow eyes. Their names are direct Indonesian translations of their main features, their eyes (Mata = Eyes, Satu = One Matasatu = one-eyed; hollow = Bolong Matabolong = Hollow eyed).
Featured in UNDRGRND DIGS 006 over a year ago, and since then built the world surrounding the beginning of the journey of an adventurous avocado.
“The avocado journey started as my way of making a long-form story about the characters,” creator Dannel Reskala says, “turned Matabolong into an avocado because he looks like he's the avocado seed, carrying a big avocado bag into the mountains and forests.”
From there we’ve seen a myriad of shape-shifting versions of Matasutu & Matabolong. Once expanding to Solana they began to grow in popularity, size, and sense of humor.
The first mint Matabolong - Forest Dump, teaches us how defecation in this world works, something never discussed in Studio Ghibli films. One Year on the Road celebrates Matabolong’s journey, the friends they’ve met, and the places they’ve seen; the perfect metaphor for all of us who have come to the world of crypto art.
Matasutu and Matabolong have begun to enter our physical world, portrayed now in digital photos and architecture sketches, showcasing Dannel’s vast artistic skills. But just as in other works, Matasutu and Matabolong reflect our real-world experience as well.
“I created this artwork (Fishing in the Media) as a commentary on the way the media loves to make click baits. Matasatu and Matabolong are portrayed as fishing with the media as if they're trying to catch the attention of the public. The 'Media' here is UNDRGRND, and we're trying together to catch those audiences.”
Attention drives our space and together, elevating each other, we can catch the lifeblood for all our success.
