We recently had the chance to interview @JhanuNyamu for an installment of DNS's Community Spotlight series. I met Jahnu (pronounced Jaw-new, not Yaw-new!) in Twitter Spaces and found him quite fascinating. He's very kind and thoughtful in the ways that he engages with people, in addition to being an extremely talented artist. He minted his first NFT on the Tezos blockchain February 21st, 2022. It was titled "The Witness" #1.
One thing that makes him stand out from other artists is that he has a condition called synesthesia. This causes people's senses to work and react differently than usual. It comes in many different forms, but in the case of Jahnu, different sights will trigger different smells. Put simply, he can look at a piece of artwork and it will trigger different types of smells.
The first time I came across him, people were showing him their artwork and he would do his best to describe how different pieces would smell to him. It sounded silly at first, but after listening to him describe things for a while, I came to love the way he did things. He's spent so much time throughout his life describing different smells to people that even just listening to him give descriptions felt like a work of art in and of itself.
I've pitched the idea of turning his descriptions of smells into something like poetry, and he isn't sure that they provide anything really valuable. We'll have to disagree on that one, but if you ever get the chance to ask him to describe the way anything smells, you're in for a treat.
His power to describe smells is just one small facet of Jahnu. He's an extremely dedicated 3D artist who takes his craft very seriously. If you listen back to the interview that we recorded, you can hear him describe his process in great detail which is very interesting, coming from someone who doesn't have the same background in art. One thing that was really unique was how he described having a "smell palette" handy while working.
His current body of work is titled "Grief3x3" and is an exploration of the various stages of grief. It's not finished yet, but there are 9 pieces planned in total. It's really a beautiful journey through it. His descriptions with each piece are deep and succint and really seem to do a wonderful job of relaying the human experience through his imagery and text.
If you're interested in listening to the full interview that took place on March 6th, you can find it here. (We'll get a proper embedded version soon!) I encourage everyone to give it a listen, it's just over an hour long and is a lovely introduction to who Jahnu is as a person and artist.
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or even an artist to recommend for future interviews, join our Discord server and let us know. And stay tuned for our #DNSGENESIS launch on 4/20!