Living In The Digital Art Renaissance - Part 1
Artists making their mark in the Solana ecosystem
I want you to cast your mind back to late 2020. A young, double penetrated and butthurt Dosed was re-immersing himself into the world of crypto after a hiatus of poverty. Not only did I get REKT in 2018 like everybody else, but I had also managed to sell ALL of my Bitcoin that I’d been buying for around $3,000 at $8,500 earlier that year because I thought it was best to liquidate my nefarious assets to cope with the pandemic. Much pain I was in, much cope I had to snort.
Anyway, feeling the PTSD from the previous cycle I’d decided that everything that wasn’t Bitcoin was an unsustainable Ponzi going to zero UNTIL I witnessed my first NFT bull run. I dispelled the idea of BTC maximalism and proclaimed that finally crypto has found a true use case and I accepted that ETH now had a justified value of infinity.
Fast forward to today, we’ve seen prestigious art galleries, like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, feature NFTs from the likes of Beeple, Yuga, and Larva labs, selling pieces for millions of dollars. Artists like Tory Lanez have applied NFT tech to music sales, allowing owners special access to his content and more. Now, of course, there’s been 300,000 failed projects and scams, derivative art collections that were literally copy-pasted, and Kevin from Pixelmon. Would it even be crypto if there wasn’t a $70 million Kevin somewhere? Come on.
So where did little old Dosed find himself in this “paradigm shift”? you ask. Well, the digital art renaissance will not pass him by, no-no. In the deepest depths of the Solana ecosystem (aka Formfunction and Exchange.art) I have been picking at the gold mine of extremely rare and talented artists producing some of the most breathtaking and stunning art that I’ve had the joy of appreciating.
Now, most of these NFTs are ones that I own and in this article, I’m going to do my best to convince you that the 1/1 market on Solana is so talent-rich, that as the mainstream recognizes real NFT art, some of these creators will reside in the fine art elite.
As they say in Rome, LFG!
P.S Artist names and images are linked to their profiles so click to find out more :)
Art:Tech
I first stumbled upon Art:Tech while browsing through Holaplex and noticed that Big Brain Gallery had acquired the 1st piece in the CLT.CNSTRCT sub-collection. The sheer amount of detail and use of color (especially the tactical use of gold) on the superhero subject really captured the imagination. After doing some digging I found that I was one of many discerning collectors trying to get a piece of Art:Tech’s work.
Self-described as a “Cyber religion digital fine artist, inspired by the past, creating for the future” Art:Tech takes inspiration from iconography, Islamic art, and the renaissance era and then fuses it with modern and futuristic subjects.
Art:Tech has been a professional pencil artist in craft (as we see more of in the Legasi PFP piece above) since 2003 but ironically got into NFTs more recently when his scanner broke and was forced into pure digital art.
Huseansadam
This artist is one close to my heart as he has also become a friend, and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to follow him closely on his journey as an NFT artist. The first piece of art I ever bought from Huseansadam was a spectacular collage of Japanese character influence and honestly was so wildly put together that I had to buy more just to see how he’d arrange the characters the next time. What made it even more interesting was the depth of information in the storytelling of each piece, rich in actual historic Japanese folklore.
Using digital collages and more recently in his series “Genesis of Life” bold red and green highlights contrasted on black backgrounds, Huseanadam has managed to be a desired artist amongst most of the well-known collectors in the scene.
Much of Huseanadam’s inspiration comes from religious books, broad Asian lore, and classic art (as can be seen in the piece above, in which I am the proud owner).
Scornhex
This is one of my all-time favorite 1/1s. I’m in total awe of the use of dark shades and how detailed the facial expressions of the characters are in this piece. The whole Novum Exordium collection manages to incorporate intense clashes of white light to truly make you feel as if you’re witnessing refined Manga in action.
Scornhex’s style focuses on blending black & white manga and 90s anime with dark beauty. Females are the subject in each piece as they best encapsulate all the themes of Scornhex’s work. With main inspirations from Sui Ishida (Death Note) and Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy), Scornhex is able to explore themes within the Japanese animation culture and bring Manga and Anime fine art to the market.
Antoine Doré
Now admittedly at the time of writing this article, Antoine Doré is the only artist featured in which I own absolutely no art (this is very likely to change pretty soon). The French artist uses expressive lines and curves combined with hues of blue, orange, and purple to create sensual masterpieces. Again, another artist on the list who uses a woman as the focal point, further perpetuating the idea that women, muses, and beauty move as one entity in the art world.
Antoine uses Franco-Belgian comic artists such as Hergé and Moebius as huge inspirations in his creative process and would consider his art along the lines of surrealism and even pop surrealism. Other influences for Antoine include Italian Renaissance paintings, Bosch, Bruegel drawings, Asian art, literature (magic realism in particular), science, nature, and cinema.
Adam Alfsyr
Ok so yes I had to steal this image from Adam Alfsyr’s Twitter banner BUT there is a good reason for this. All of Adam’s art is made as ultra high-quality MP4 animation that I don’t have the skills to capture in an image without defaming the quality. To truly appreciate Adam’s art properly you need to absorb pieces like [Forever] Watched or The Namahage [生剥].
Adam’s popularity has exponentially increased over the last few months as more and more prestigious collectors are coming round to the undeniability of this genius. He adopts and merges themes of surrealism with animation and futuristic models. Further inspirations come from the idea of apocalypse and the intricate connection/separation of the human body.
Culturehacker
Every Sunday afternoon the Ministry of Art hosts a Twitter spaces session (M.A.S.S) where an artist has the opportunity to speak about their art, history, and thoughts on the 1/1 space. This is where I first came across Culturehacker and his unique journey into the world of NFTs.
Culturehacker is a real-life professor and a founding member & director of the Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab and has spoken at SXSW, Sundance, Cannes, and even has his own TED talk. Like Beeple, Culturehacker creates a piece of art every day and posts it on his social media, allowing us a glimpse into his artistic state of mind on a daily basis.
His art glitch art style arrests the attention of sophisticated voyeurs and takes inspiration from the works of the Fluxus and happening art moments of the 50s & 60s.
Didn’t I say digital art renaissance? Well, this is the first (but maybe only) roundup of what is happening in the NFT space that is not 10k animal projects. I personally hope anybody reading this is curious enough to check out all of these artists and their work.
I also update my galleries regularly, if you want to check them out here and here
Peace out degens