Batzdu

Batzdu, who signs work as batz, is a digital artist who treats the meme as an infinite and evolving medium. He came out of a design background, and that training shows in his method: reduce a form to its bare state and see how much you can strip before it stops being the thing. His first Ethereum work was Commodes in February 2021, a satirical answer to the rotating primitive objects that made Pak famous, filtered through his interest in Dada. In August 2022 he minted Geometric Pepes, 100 one of one breakdowns of Pepe the Frog into flat cubist planes. He auctioned seven a week on Thursdays and they routinely sold out, which is when his collector base formed. Jack Butcher then brought him in as the first outside artist on Opepen, for Set 003, titled Full Circle, since Butcher has said Opepen was directly inspired by Geometric Pepes. In 2023 he minted The Nine as his SuperRare genesis, a triple triptych of self reflection that moved him past frog imagery. He went full time as an artist in 2024. He now works largely around The Self, his own visual signifier, and around a long running archive of the memes he posts.

He works in flat, hard edged, cubist and Dada influenced compositions, usually built around a repeated signifier: Pepe early on, then The Self, a hooded masked head that recurs across his one of ones. He mints one of one series on Ethereum and generative work in p5js, plus tezos editions. His projects are structured as long running systems, with burn mechanics, epochs and editions that act as keys to later collections.

• Geometric Pepes, 100 one of ones from August 2022
• Opepen Set 003, Full Circle, the first outside artist collab with Jack Butcher
• The Nine, his SuperRare genesis triple triptych
• The Self, his recurring hooded portrait signifier
• My Meme Folder, a multi year burn and collect meme archive at ourmemefolder.com

On the show