Creating from rupture. Paths forward from past missteps. Masquerade and the Masks of Luci
NYC
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Much of the design of my new site was made around rabbit holes.
To start with the surface of something simple, say a skull, then slip between (and into) each artwork, collection, person, psalm, their contributions, and how each piece fits together.
samspratt.com/skulls/skulls
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One last cover for @logic301
At some point you'll notice yourself standing in the hollow indents of footprints you've already made in a place familiar and loved yet distant as a dream. Hope you've learned what led you there. Now unravel, find peace, and ascend. No Pressure.
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Some of my 2020 artwork 🎨
ALT Kid Cudi - MOTM3 cover, Slipspace, Logic - No Pressure front, Logic - No Pressure back, Ambassador, Manhattan Quarantine
ALT Silk & Husk, Boss, Streeteasy Ad Campaign, War, 7pm 2020, 070 Shake - Modus Vivendi
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New painting 🎨
Variant cover for the end of Ta-Nehisi Coates' run of Black Panther. @Marvel
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"go back to the basement, but everything feel different and distant". This was the least direction given for a cover between us over the years, but prob the most organic for both of us. Really just born out of convos about where he's at in life vs explicit art direction.
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No Pressure back cover for Logic
Infinite oceans spill from each & every atom no matter how seemingly void. We dove endlessly into this 1 & you came with me each time I drowned. Grateful for your company, but once you're done here: rub the sleep from your eyes & get yours, baby.
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I spent 10 months thinking: I'm too outside the space, too old, 3 paintings is a tiny output, I don't have a musical artist or brand to hide behind, no animation, too emo, too unrelatable, ugly monkey jpegs. But, I felt compelled, so I made them. And now the jpegs are real.
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The original approved sketch for Logic's no pressure album cover. Took time to figure out how to unravel the scene I wanted to make but unlearning & relearning aspects of perspective/light/color to get there I genuinely enjoyed. Something I hadn't felt with painting for awhile.
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Artwork I made for Logic's Ultra 85.
Our final cover together.
//
You are hunting for something hidden you've already found. This is the end.
Prepare for the future that’s coming as best you can. This will be a brutal goodbye for some, but seize agency and a freedom can emerge in the wreckage that only a true new cycle can bring. Nostalgia can only comfort us for so long.
Let go. See you in Paradise.
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Some of the illustration work I've done in the music industry. Album covers, tour posters, branded ads, etc. for Logic, Cudi, Shake, Gambino, Janelle, Posty, Marvel, etc.
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Was sifting through old drives and found the 8k version of the cover I did for @KiDCuDi. Absolute mad dash making this in a few days.
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One of the best humans I've ever worked with. Some of the art made over the years for @Logic301
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Ultra 85 cover soon.
No money changed hands.
Though I’ve made most of @logic301 album art over the last decade, w the world of Luci I’ve built since, rather than another job, I proposed to him: an old world barter system.
Art for art between artists of different mediums.
This will be our last cover and in exchange, Logic will be taking off the rap hat and going full musical producer with grand instrumentation creating the musical score for my world and story of Luci.
I have turned away every album cover and every project for the last few years to focus on Luci. If I was gonna return one last time, it needed to be a celebration of our friendship, acknowledgment of what he helped me begin, and an end to this story loop. This exchange felt like the perfect way to close it.
Having been in the studio with him many times over the last decade I always would see him and 6ix in an absolute flowstate when lyrics were removed from the equation. He seemed most free there. Filterless, raw, primal. After so many years helping to create his visual world. I wanted to know what it would be like to see what he would create if stripped of “Logic” and helped me create the sonics of mine.
So after listening to an early cut of Ultra 85 when he came to NYC, we had a very brutal conversation about saying goodbye to the things that hold us back.
All the little stories we have told ourselves over the years. I have only heard an extremely early cut of the album, but what I hear is someone going through the very ugly, honest, and beautiful process of trying to get out of their own way and the prison of their own nostalgia. You can feel someone trying to breach their past, and the spiraled path treading similar ground and they learn what it means to not step in footprints they already left. The album as I heard it, is an arc through this process.
One that is hard whether you are an artist alone in your room filled with ideas you don’t even know how to take the first steps towards or someone like him whose life has been marked with stacks of platinum records and sold out arena tours. The scales of this attempt goes infinitely up and rhyme with one another along the way.
Our covers together were extremely formative for me. Not only did they help support me at various stages of my time as an artist, let me save, build, and connect to others through them — in the works I was able to worldbuild, see what it is to have his supporters comb through details, find out secrets and stories beyond the readily obvious, planting seeds for those who look closely, as his diehards know there is an an entire separate arc to The Incredible True Story saga purely on these interconnected album covers. Luci would not look the way it does without our time working together and through the deep friendship formed I wanted to close this loop together with a graceful handshake. I can’t wait for you to hear his music for the next chapters. It’s a crazy honor to have his absurd talent pointed this way.
This is goodbye to a character for both of us. A hopeful goodbye to one form and a pursuit of another. Note: I say goodbye, not retirement, as we all know how much that sticks.
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"Playstation 25 years" cover + anniversary logo I made for @gameinformer
❗️ I'll be makin type-free prints available later this week
gameinformer.com/cover-revea…
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I'm Sam and I paint and consult across a bunch of industries, and occasionally even for fun. #PortfolioDay
🎨 samspratt.com
📸 instagram.com/samspratt
ALT 7pm 2020, Manhattan Quarantine
ALT Shuri #1 Marvel, 070 Shake Modus Vivendi
ALT Playstation 25th anniversary, COADM tour
ALT Everybody, Dreams
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To get to see something you've put your whole self into out there in the world like this (especially with your people), is a gift. An undeniably special feeling.
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Of all the dumb shit I put in the logic album covers I assumed no one would ever bother to find, making up this fake alphabet was easily my favorite/the dumbest so love you guys very much for taking the time to piece it together.
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Congrats to my dear friend @logic301 for retiring with this beautiful send off to become what he was always born to be: a twitch e boy with an onlyfans account 😌
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New painting🎨
I. Birth of Luci
Second day
of the Second month,
We are ripped awake.
Unbalanced, wobbling, newborn.
Decades of corrupted memories
Cached in freshly scarred sinew.
Ignore the footprints.
Time to take our first steps again.
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thank you, but bob backs the artwork more than almost any other musician in the industry, often by a wide margin.
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“Atom” the ATM-300 series robot you see on the Ultra 85 cover was a character I originally designed for the album “Everybody”.
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New 🎨
VII. Wormfood
My first painting to be auctioned at @ChristiesInc
ALT Cartography of the Mind is a curated auction donated to benefit the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). In collaboration with the collector Ryan Zurrer, founder of Dialectic and Vine Ventures, Christie’s has assembled more than two dozen new or recently executed artworks — many of which reflect the artists’ own profound experiences with psychedelics
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Today marks one year from when I released a painting series titled: LUCI.
Some thoughts on why I chose to create this, what has come from it, and what will be; all from going all-in on “monkey paintings” 🧵
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LUCI: Chapter 5
The Monument Game
-One 1/1
-Edition of 256
-A game of art and observation
-And for those few who play to win, a reward
August 21-24
Sound on 🔊
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A lot of magic this year but this is the best bit of it all.
I am getting married tomorrow.
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For those new here from yesterday, A good chunk of my career before Luci was creating art for music: This included most of Logic's discography along with work with Donald Glover, Janelle Monae, 070 Shake, Ty Dolla, All Time Low among others.
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Some sadboi mecha popstar vibes for your friday. New artwork I did for @zaynmalik : "Better"
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Congrats to @Logic301 on the spectacular Ultra 85. Working on these covers together was the joy of my pre-Luci life in art. Heard many versions of this album over the years. End result is a pristine nostalgia-rama tour used to bare the burden of our myths and fight to grow.
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"IX. The Monument Game" collected by @1OF1_art
For 420.69Ξ ($699,392.00)
All of the gratitude in the world to @kukulabanze and the whole team. The game has landed in the perfect hands.
Play again?
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Happy to finally see these vinyls out in the wild. Always been the best place for the album covers to live.
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This is the blueprint painting that each unique variation of LUCI's skull will be based on.
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man.
Birth of Luci up in Times Square
Thank you @CozomoMedici 🍷 this is special.
ALT photo by @paramyonzon
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While my earnest side is genuinely so appreciative of everyone saying such sweetie things about the cover.. like every album release, the kindness only fills my heart so much. The rest I get from watching the beautiful psychodetectives decode everything. You are my fix. My favs🖤
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Fun fact: I painted most of @Logic301’s album covers and he surprised me on one of his albums with a name drop.
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Gm, A year ago I gave my friend a JPEG I made that was worth nothing as a wedding gift.
Yesterday it sold for 65 ETH (~$100k at the time)
But there is more to the story that I can now share 🧵
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New 🎨
IV. Return to Diorama
superrare.com/artwork-v2/iv.…
ALT No one likes this moment To have seen the design Heard the frequency The chords of the Solo man’s chant And to miss The Wander is not meant for tourists Endless stories cannot be told with death, enos Take comfort that arrogance is shared Isaac was firstborn only to the unread Now sit in your muck dear Luci Blush from the fall from the Acacia Let the diodes illuminate the theater Closed eyelids crawl with the pattern now Draw its map when the dream gets darkest If you should return Bring fire
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Gm
Sketch ➡️ Underpainting ➡️ Color ➡️ Finish
ALT VIII. Infinite Ceremony
ALT VIII. Infinite Ceremony
ALT VIII. Infinite Ceremony
ALT VIII. Infinite Ceremony
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New painting 🎨
VIII. Infinite Ceremony
ALT VIII. Infinite Ceremony Sink below closed eyes The vow is wasted on mimicked life This ritual is not a visual Bear Witness: We may mark the mines for Lapis The hidden roots for Chanterelle But The Carmine Trail of mud and blood Has led to Infinite Altar Offer the totems Each trinket and Golem Every stacked body and burial mound Gutted and scraped of the last of the maggots Beetled clean, bleached in the sun We proffer not just confession, but grimoires and fire The dyed meal we feast on, of forefallen authors Sima, beloved, we offer the promise To sculpt for The Kiln and dance forth another Exit bare in hand, this Diorama The Game is about to begin
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"VIII. Infinite Ceremony"
Underpainting vs Final
Beginning with these hot tones, gradually carving in light & shadow, then glazing in color: lets bits of what's underneath shine through the later layers to influence the earthen mud & reflected light as the sun bounces against the cave floor onto the bodies. This also allows Luci's pinkish flesh to be the first layer of skin, so as I paint the pale blue fur, I can leave behind the areas where the hair is thinnest and the blood flow is highest.
In this particular painting, the light is central not just to the image but to the story, so having it permeate the many layers of the skin of the figures and environment was a must. The build up of flaws and missteps, slowly honed over time as you make an attempt.
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Album cover I painted for @070shake's debut album, Modus Vivendi + bonus concept sketch for the android design. The music is somethin really special.
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Skulls of Luci 💀 Mega Thread
This 🧵 will cover the philosophy, ideation, history, & lessons learned from their creation. Going into the weeds of making a small collection of 50 pieces that began as gifts and now each sell for >30 eth and are held by this space's best👇
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