Ricardo Cavolo is a Spanish artist based in Barcelona, Spain. His eclectic international style is based on relationships with folk art, traditional and modern tattoo culture, European religious imagery, tribal arts, his childhood dreams of Middle Earth, detailed monster manuals, and beloved RPG video games.

Utilizing art as a complex narrative, Cavolo often focuses on portraiture. Referencing religious and historical fiction illustrations, his use of symmetry and symbolism connects to a modern and playful audience.

Cavolo's portfolio features public murals and art exhibitions across the globe from Paris to Moscow. Cavolo's body of work includes illustrations, publications, fashion collaborations, a wide variety of commissioned works, and multiple NFT collections, the most recent of which, The Inventory, is now minting exclusively on OpenSea until Monday, October 2nd at 10:30am PST.

OpenSea: Thank you for joining us, Ricardo! We’d love to start with a macro question about your art. Who or what are your biggest inspirations and influences when creating?

Ricardo Cavolo: Art has always been in my life ever since my brain can remember. My father is an artist and a teacher, so I was always surrounded by art of all sorts, always encouraged to be curious and to create things. Before I could even read, I had access to a lot of books and visual references and I spent a lot of time traveling into all these different universes. I remember being strongly triggered by medieval imagery, by Conan [The Barbarian] comics books, and by the maps of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

OpenSea: How has your work developed and evolved over time?

Ricardo Cavolo: Early in my life, I had a special family situation. My parents were not together anymore so I spent half the time drawing in my father’s art studio, and half the time I was living with my mom in a huge family. This is when I realized that the world was filled with so many different people with so many different stories and that most of these stories were invisible to the common eye. 

My father told me that sometimes you needed two sets of eyes, one set to see the obvious and one set to discover the gems hidden in the shadow. The teachings and experiences made me really interested in telling stories, almost always without using words, and that is when the use of iconography became really important. 

That’s also when I realized that I could not find beauty or satisfaction in perfection, I preferred when my work was asymmetric and I slowly embraced the path of the outsider artist, making things that trigger the happiness of my inner child rather than trying to appeal to others. So I started mixing everything. I built a mental sandbox where my adult self and my inner child could go to discuss, to argue, and to create together.

OpenSea: What was your journey into web3 and NFTs like? How did you start creating them?

Ricardo Cavolo: My journey in web3 started in 2010 when my brother Andre (technically, not my biological brother) showed me what Fvckrender was doing. Andre called Fvckrender to find out more about the blockchain, and we immediately understood that it could be a game-changer for me. It was the perfect playground to give life to my stories.

In 2021, I created a first collection called Champions of the Lost Alchemy, a sort of soft introduction to a universe that I had in my mind for a while. At first, I was not sure if anyone would be interested in my work, but the doubt quickly vanished as every Champion sold, and the holders became the early believers who fueled my trust, supporters of my every step, and even friends.

Despite the inspiration, I decided that I did not want to create a large collection. I preferred to make a small collection to slowly introduce more characters and to dive deeper into the lore of my story. Not a lot of people know this, but the collections I created over the past 3 years are all connected. Andre and I have a lot of fun doing this.

When AudioGalleries approached me to do a collection, I was not sure. At that moment I was receiving dozens of DMs every day from producers who wanted me to create 10,000-piece collections. AudioGalleries was different in that they were interested in helping me (rather than the other way around), and they were wonderful at listening to me and assisting me in making one of my favorite bodies of work: The Inventory.

OpenSea: Can you tell us a little about The Inventory? Knowing that this is your first generative collection, how did you decide to create it this way, and how different is it from your previous collections?

Ricardo Cavolo: The idea of creating a generative collection has been extremely appealing to me since 2021, but I was lacking the “why.” Andre and I decided not to walk that path unless we had good reasons to. But then, Benjamin from AudioGalleries sent me a DM on Twitter, to show me a tattoo of a flaming heart he has on his arm. I think that I took this as a sign of the universe telling me I could trust this guy. The universe was right!

Andre and I were really inspired by our conversations with AudioGalleries. It didn’t take long before we started to geek out with Ben as he immediately understood where I was coming from and where I wanted to go. My objective was to introduce another piece of lore and create a different door for people to explore and discover the story. 

Initially, I wanted to create maps, so it made sense to make a generative collection out of it. But I was not ready yet to unveil that much information about the landscape and maps yet, especially because I had never made a generative collection before and I wanted to have more knowledge of it. 

Earlier this year, I painted an exhibition at the Stolen Space Gallery in London. The collection is entitled “Hyperteen” and it shows teenagers as if they were heroes of their own RPG (role-playing game). I loved working on those paintings so much that I wanted to find a way to keep exploring that concept. That is when I decided to tell a story through The Inventory. It was the perfect way to tell the narrative differently while learning the process of making a generative collection.

OpenSea: What was the process of creating this collection like?

Ricardo Cavolo: The learning curve was HUGE! I was so fortunate to work with the great people of AudioGalleries and Metaseed Labs on this. We spent months working on this and I can honestly say that making this collection was a tipping point for me. It made me realize that a story can be told in many ways. The art can just be art, or it can be a door to a unique story.

OpenSea: If you had to use one word to describe The Inventory, what would it be?

Ricardo Cavolo: RPG.

OpenSea: Who or what else excites you in the web3 and NFT space right now?

Ricardo Cavolo: I’m excited when art becomes a vehicle for playful narratives and gaming, like Cool Cats, Lvcidia, Fear City, and Crypto Raiders.

OpenSea: Big picture, what do you hope the future of NFTs looks like?

Ricardo Cavolo: I want it to be safe, accessible, easy, fun, and respectful.

See the whole collection on OpenSea here.