Showdeer is the working name of the artist and painter Chris Bigalke, who has worked under that name since 2008,producing dreamlike, surreal, collage-based digital artand pop-surrealist paintings.His pastel,psychedelicstyle grew out of years designing gig posters and artwork for touring bands and national brands in Portland, Oregon.
Bigalke grew up in Southern California before settling in Portland, Oregon,where he began working professionally as a poster artist in 2008.His pastel, vintage and surreal style began to emerge after he designed more than 200 gig posters for a Portland music venue he was booking for.He began minting digital fine art on the blockchain with a Genesis mint on February 15, 2021, releasing The Genesis Collection, a selection of 1,000 pieces drawn from roughly 2,500 works made over his fifteen years as a digital collage artist.,His first Genesis piece later resold for more than $65,000 on the secondary market.Across his collections he has drawn more than 1,800 individual collectors and generated over $2.2 million in secondary-market sales.
His animated genesis piece The Surrealmint was shown and sold at auction during NFT NYC in 2021.Showdeer became an official TIME Magazine TIMEPieces artist and has exhibited at Art Basel Miami, NFT NYC, and MET Amsterdam, the last curated by The Hug.,He has also created artwork to benefit Afghan women and girls in partnership with Rescue.org.
Bigalke names Salvador Dalí, Mark Ryden, and Jean-Michel Basquiat among his favorite artists. Alongside his digital collage work, Bigalke paints murals and pop-surrealist canvases and has experimented with drawing and painting on tablet software using Procreate.
