Meet espress0: Satirical Visual Artist and Pepe Expressionist

The Artist:

espress0, a.k.a. CertifiedPublicAccountant, a.k.a Jonas, is (like me, and as in the name) an accountant & an auditor… But that doesn’t mean you should ask him (or me) for financial advice!

Jonas hails out of the city of brotherly love - that is, Philadelphia. His IRL job has him scanning numbers for errors, but after work, like a lot of the web3 community, he scans the numbers for fun. Aside from this, Jonas is a self-proclaimed satirical and parodic visual artist, with a variety of pixelated and non-pixelated works.

Like me, again, Jonas enjoys connecting the dots between our different internet communities. He’s responsible for a low edition PFP collection called Noun Pepes (containing 420 square-rimmed-glasses wearing Pepes), as well as a slightly higher edition PFP collection called Noun Peepos (containing 9,999 Peepos, existing peacefully on the blockchain). Then there’s Bento Blox, the standard diet of Noun Pepes, too!

The reasoning behind the Noun Pepe collections was to draw a line in the ether - between the Nouns community and the Pepe community - to promote peace, positivity and partnership. That, and the fact that NounPepes.eth was available, made it too sweet of an opportunity for Jonas to miss!

Noun Pepes were cultivated by Jonas in Web3 from a life-long devotion to creating works of art as gifts to anyone that accepted. Inspired by the duality of pepe and the freedom of Nouns, Jonas created Noun Pepes to illuminate the importance of balance and living in harmony with nature and the people around us.

Jonas created these collections with the help of a few web3 friends, in the form of Chuckstarelli, whalegoddess & $cummers. whalegoddess even assisted with quite a unique (and relatively unprecedented) smart contract function designed to dispense an ERC-721 token in place of any ERC-1155 (now referred to as Noun Pepes OG) burned to NounPepes.eth (a bit like an XCP dispenser), in order to ensure true ownership of token data by the user.

The collections themselves are full of original pixel art by Jonas (Noun Pepes, Noun Peepos) & Chuckstarelli (Bento Blox). Pixel art is perhaps one of the most underrated niches within our world of art one, but it is one of the most simply beautiful niches in art, and Jonas is a champion of it.

The Art:

Exemplifying a grainy minimalist style of art that he's shown off previously within his Fake Fake Rare Pepe Cards collection, Jonas has developed ARISINGPEPE for our week 4 pushin P Artdrop.

This asset is a reflection of the sacred rite of passage of all frogs which is to go out into the world and evolve. It also reflects the rising up of an army of frogs (which is really what we should be calling a group of frogs) as they ride the tides of the internet.

The logos of Pepe suggests that where we go one, we go all. The ethos of Pepe urges, and ensures, that we continue to support each other in a selfless, considerate & generous manner.

A Rising Pepe lifts all Pepes is the truest way to describe how we all receive and reciprocate each other’s art. Willingly, in good faith, and with love.

There's something simply elegant about this piece, something peaceful, something soothing. Even with the tears flowing down the older Pepe's face, as he watches his younger self move off on the journey of evolution, it makes me feel like everything is going to be ok.

Parting thought:

I've been listening to Joe Rogan & Jordan Peterson discuss the foundations of society as I've been writing this article.

Jordan says there is a spirit that guides us, be it a good one that encourages us to seek the truth, or perhaps something darker that comes from a place of greed and/or fear. People like Joe and people like Pepe have something in common, in that they are all being led by a unique spirit... one which remains sceptical, but hopeful. Hopeful for a united future.

hold on to your butts

Check out free NFT ArtDrop by espress0 here

Associated Projects:

• OpenSea Collection: Noun Pepes OG (ERC-1155)
• OpenSea Collection: Noun Pepes (ERC-721)
• OpenSea Collection: Bento Blox (Feed the Noun Pepes)
• OpenSea Collection: Fake Fake Rare Pepe Cards