Rebecca Nawls-Walker (aka Wrecks) is a multimedia artist and electronic musician from Chicago. Since 2017, she has been DJing and producing music, with her digital art emerging as a way to complement her mixes. During the pandemic, she embraced NFTs, allowing her to merge digital art and music in new ways. Her unique combination of text-based compositions, animated poster art, and electronic music has been exhibited and collected internationally. Now, Wrecks is focused on transitioning her digital work into physical spaces while continuing to explore themes of self-reflection, vulnerability, and rebirth.
In this interview, Wrecks discusses her journey from playing saxophone in school to becoming a DJ and multimedia artist. She shares insights on balancing her visual and musical outputs, the influence of NFTs on her creative process, and the deeply personal themes embedded in her text-based art.
Visit Wrecks’ MakersPlace Profile
Brady Walker: Welcome back to MakersPlace Spotlights. I have with me Wrecks, also known as Rebecca Nawls-Walker. We’re not related. Wrecks, цan you start by telling us a little bit about your journey as an artist and as a musician?
W: Of course. So, I’m Wrecks from Chicago. I really didn’t start making music until my twenties, when I started DJing. I had a little background in my school band—I played saxophone—but I sort of took to music later in life, stepping into the artist role. As I was DJing, I started playing with visuals and exploring the space of being able to post our creations.
BW: Very cool. How did you transition from saxophone to DJing? What was that movement like?
W: Honestly, you know, after you play in your school band, you don’t always see a future in it. When I lived in Austin, Texas, I met a lot of self-taught artists who were producing their own music in local studios. They would invite people in to play around with different things. Seeing that transition—self-produced artists, and DJs making it work with whatever they had—illuminated a whole other space of creativity for me, one that wasn’t tied to just physical instruments.
BW: Text-based art is quite a niche genre, and your work fuses that with poster design and animation. I assume this came about because you were promoting yourself as a DJ, but when did you see the line between poster design and thinking, “This is a fine art medium”? Were there any artists that influenced that, or how did that come about?
W: Honestly, at the time it happened, I was still really focused on music. Then the pandemic happened, and all these technologies started to spread. I saw a lot about NFTs, and as a musician releasing on Bandcamp, I used to just release music, get people to download it, and that’d be it.
I found myself on a few different platforms catered to musicians, but at some point, I just enjoyed making art to go along with the music. The unique thing about NFTs is that you could make animated album art in a way that I couldn’t upload to, say, Bandcamp, or Apple Music, or Spotify. It was the first time I started creating art specifically for this kind of medium, able to separate the two and focus on visuals.
BW: When making these pieces, how do you think about the balance between asking a viewer to look versus asking them to read?
W: Honestly, I don’t know. Sometimes I take a selfish approach—it’s just an aesthetic thing for myself. I always start by writing something personal, and when I first started making these posters, I was actually trying to obscure the writing because it was so personal. I didn’t think anyone would be reading that deeply.
Then the aesthetic part became: how do I divert people from really reading the text, unless they were really looking for it? I think that balance—of wanting the text to be seen but also hidden—became the focus of finding the aesthetic in these posters.
BW: How do you balance your musical output with your visual output?
W: That’s been the hardest balance for me. I don’t think I can do both at the same time. I’ve become a bit of a perfectionist, so it’s easier to focus on posters for a while or music for a while. Like, I haven’t made a poster in six or eight months, but I’ve been heavily into music production. I think it’s just a cycle for me—I shift between different emphases.
BW: This series, Who Am I/Who I Am—how did it come about? What’s the story behind it?
W: I started a year or two ago with a series called Digital Dialog, which was a conversation with myself. Who I Am is a continuation of that—more self-reflection. I felt like I was creating within the limits of Twitter and NFT spaces, without showing that side of myself to loved ones. It was a way to step back and reintroduce myself and my art, even to myself.
BW: What did you learn from that?
W: I learned I was still uncertain. After two years of making posters and questioning my identity as an artist, I realized I love the creative process. I’m not tied to one method, and that’s okay. This series helped me let go of the need for validation and stop worrying about how my art would be received.
BW: When I saw your work, I was captivated, which is why I reached out. I did an exercise to find artists buried in the feed on MakersPlace, and out of nearly 1,000 profiles, yours stood out. Very few artists were doing something uniquely their own, but your text-based art did, and it spoke to me.
W: I really appreciate that.
BW: Your writing explores self-acceptance, self-knowledge, and vulnerability. When you create, which comes first—the writing or the visuals? What does your writing process look like?
W: My writing is emotional and day-to-day. I reflect on what’s happening around me—relationships, things loved ones are going through—and then I reflect it back on myself. It’s easy to judge externally, but artists need to focus on self-judgment and accountability. My writing is about being honest with myself, figuring out where I am and where I want to go.
It’s a solitary process, but what’s interesting is that deeply personal work often resonates with others. It’s a way of witnessing yourself while being witnessed by others. But first, you have to be honest with yourself—that’s the ongoing conversation.
BW: Is this a practice you have that’s separate from the creative process? Like, do you see something and think, “I can see a place for this in the art,” or does it start with the intention to make art from it?
W: Well, I think it always starts with the writing first. I have a lot of notes in my app, so I’ll pop it open and jot down different iterations of what I’m thinking. It’s not always intended as artwork, but there are times when I see an image or think of motion, and then I’ll look for words or writings that might overlap.
There have been collections where I’ve forced myself to create something every day, so I write with the intention of making something. But I’ve always felt a little unsatisfied with that process because it feels like I’m forcing the words and images together.
BW: Yeah, there’s something about the dailies. I think there’s a place for them, and a lot of artists thrive with them. But it’s such a technical exercise, and I wonder what it would look like if artists who’ve been doing dailies for a long time just stopped for a while and tackled one piece at a time.
W: Definitely. I’ve wondered that myself. I haven’t made a visual piece in a few months, so I’m excited to get back to it and see what the process feels like in 2024.
BW: Where do you get the visual elements?
W: It’s a bit of a mix. When I first started, I used Max MSP a lot to do visual coding and create some great visuals. I actually ran this particular piece through Max a few times to get a delayed visual effect—it’s really good with visual synthesis. But I’ll pull visuals from anywhere. Sometimes it’s about knowing exactly what I want, like in this piece—I specifically wanted an eye and a skeleton, so I went searching for that.
I’ve also used AI for a few months in my workflow to pull visuals, but normally it’s about finding a video or synthesizing something in Max, then making the text work around it, depending on what the motion looks like. It really comes together in the moment with multiple pieces.
BW: In your description of Justification, you mention the push and pull in your design process and how you enjoyed learning CSS animation. I find that fascinating because I can see how you’re pushing yourself. Can you talk about your design process and the tools you use?
W: The tools are just what’s available, and I’ve been lucky to have other artists suggest things. For this piece, I used Cables.gl, a visual coding language, which Purse Beats introduced me to. I wanted to do something bare-bones. Yes, I could code the poster, but it wasn’t easy. What drives me is figuring out how to do something if it’s possible.
Growing up, I didn’t always know what was possible, but suggestions opened doors. Like I said, it would’ve been easier to use keyframes in After Effects, but I wanted to explore different visual approaches. Coding a poster in CSS wasn’t something I ever thought I’d do, but it opened up new possibilities.
BW: Are there any poster artists you follow or take cues from?
W: I see a lot of designs on Instagram, so I don’t always remember names. With this poster, I was focused on the grunge, glitch art aesthetic, like Max Capacity. There’s an artist called Causa Sui who does great overlay work and motion. I’m influenced by people exploring multiple directions in their design, even if it’s not specifically posters.
BW: Poster design implies a depth that’s fascinating, like Radiohead’s album art—there’s always more beneath the surface. Your work, especially Sad Grls Club, feels like there’s a whole story there. Is that intentional? Are there deeper layers to explore?
W: Yes. I create my own lore around things like Sad Girls Club and Digital Dialog. It lets me expand on ideas over time. I’ve always felt a bit insecure about repeating themes in music, but with something like Sad Girls Club, I can reiterate and dig deeper. It adds depth to the poster while keeping the music more subtle. That’s what I love about poster creation—it’s right in your face, but there’s more beneath.
BW: Phoenixx00 is the first piece of yours I saw on MakersPlace. It was curated by Foodmasku for an exhibition, and I was immediately drawn to it. The chunk of text at the bottom really stood out. Can you tell me about this piece?
W: Creating for exhibitions is always interesting because the work is so personal, and themes can sometimes throw you off. But this piece felt like a conversation with myself. I was becoming more confident in my design choices and reflecting on a version of myself that’s probably dying, one that people won’t see again. It felt like a living piece, one of the few that still feels ongoing.
BW: Are there follow-ups to this?
W: Not directly for the Phoenixx00 piece, but more for the theme of multiple versions of self—rebirth, dying, and starting again. I’ve been trying to understand how music and visual art fit together versus separately, so you’ll see more of that, but not tied to this poster.
BW: I couldn’t help but notice there’s no music attached to your work.
W: Yes, I did release a few pieces with music, but music has always felt strange in this space. Sharing music isn’t as straightforward as posting visual art. Asking people to listen is a different challenge, so while I enjoy making music, it’s always felt like there are too many question marks for me to fully dive in—at least for now.
BW: How do you balance your creative output with your job? What does that workflow look like?
W: Well, I’m really blessed to be able to work remotely. There was a time, during the pandemic and a little after, when I had to go back in person, which was challenging. But for me, the balance has always been about being honest with myself. It takes a special kind of grind to earn from art, pay your bills, and stay steady. That’s always been stressful for me, so the easiest thing has been to keep my day job and spend my other hours working on music or art.
Those other hours—working on music or art—feel more rewarding. I enjoy making music, but it’s more intrinsic; it feels more like joy, compared to spending all day trying to make music and hoping it works out. So, for me, the balance is letting the creative work be my release after my day job. I’ve been doing this for eight years now, and it just feels good.
BW: Do you have any wildly ambitious unrealized projects?
W: Yes, actually. Earlier this year, my work was exhibited in London for the first time, and it was displayed on these beautiful CRTVs.
pIn my wildest dreams, I’d love to throw a dance party in an industrial space with multiple columns of screens showing poster art I specifically made for the event. There’d be friends DJing, and it would just be this immersive experience. I’ve been working on applying for more grants and fellowships to explore things like that. So hopefully, within the next few years, I’ll move more into creating work that’s physically displayed but still digital.
