Who are the NFT artists to follow
NFTs have completely upended the artistic space. This is where a big chunk of innovation is happening; thanks to the invaluable work of artists that have taken the opportunity to produce art with digital tools and make a living off of it. They are still in the process of being adopted by a wider public. As they do so, they are providing a lot of value to the Web3. Still, many artists are already making a name for themselves. Even household names like Sotheby’s and Christie’s are getting in on the action.
Many of the current NFT artists are ahead of the curve most likely are going to have their names written in history because they were the first to create NFT art successfully. So not only is it about what the artwork being produced. History is being written, and one should be on the lookout for these types of artistic pieces. Here are some names you should be on the lookout.
Snowfro
His real name is Erick Calderón, and he is the founder of Art Blocks, a platform for curated generative art which has already gained a lot of popularity. Since its inception in November of 2020, Art Blocks has done nothing but increase in notoriety, to the point that the platform was able to jump into mainstream and form a partnership with notorious auction house Sotheby’s.
Aside from creating Art Blocks, Snowfro has produced iconic artwork like Chromie Squiggle, which is part of the Natively Digital collaboration done with Sotheby’s.
Hackatao
A duo from Milan, they derive their artistic name from “hack” —a desire to discover what lies underneath of appearances (also fitting word to use in the field of digital artwork)— and the “tao”, alluding to the ying and yang that is present in reality. The name is fitting as well, given that Hackatao is comprised of two people.
Such a way of looking at things produces very interesting work. According to the artists’ themselves, their artwork is usually concerned with society, humanity and crypto, with references to psychology, art and history. The resulting aesthetic is a hypnotic experience, that mixes a commentary of the internal ying and yang of reality, with a futuristic and digital feel.
Tyler Hobbs
This artist from Austin, Texas, works using algorithms, plotters, and paint, in the search of a computational aesthetics. This search can be observed in the design of his own website and the works he has done over the years.
In terms of NFT work produced, Hobbs has created an algorithm that he named Fidenza, whose work can be obtained on OpenSea and also on Art Blocks. Like many artists on the NFT avant-garde, he has ventured into generative art, which puts him in the orbit of Snowfro and his generative art platfrom.
Alexa Meade
As a body painter that also uses three-dimensional spaces to make her paintings, Alexa Meade has found in NFTs a unique way of making her art available to art collectors. This is because, whereas previously she had to have her artwork printed as limited-edition photos, now she can give people artwork that is in motion. Which is how she originally intended that to be.
NFT art is empowering artists that otherwise would have had to go through a lot of trouble to present their art in a way that is not completely true to the creator’s vision. Alexa Meade’s successful NFT artwork is evidence that there is no need to conform.
Pak
The artist known as Pak has been making a name for him, her or themselves (the identity is still unknown and some speculate there could be a team behind Pak) for a while now. Whatever the case is, Pak is the artist we credit for having created the most lucrative NFT collection, which was called Merge. and sold for over $90 million dollars. Just for this, we should give Pak some sort of recognition, at least for the relevance of the work the artist was able to create.
However, the innovation here was the use of a smart contract functionality to create scarcity from a collection that had an open mint for several days. This is because all NFTs that you acquire from this collection end up merging, so that there will be less and less as the NFT gets bought in the secondary markets. Simply put, Pak is already a part of NFT art history.
Beeple
The mainstream media started covering NFTs more seriously when one Mike Winkelmann, known artistically as Beeple, sold a piece of artwork called Everydays: The First 5,000 Days. It’s simply impossible to talk about NFT art without talking about this milestone, as it is the most expensive single NFT that has ever been sold.
This is one of the artists whose name you’ll see pop up quite often as you do your own research in NFT art.
SOPRG artists
There are many artists that have chosen to trust Somnium Prucha Gallery (SOPRG) with their transition into the NFT space. The result of this collaboration is putting beautiful paintings into the blockchain thanks to top-tier scanning technology.
You can start off with Ales Ogoun’s traditional artwork that has been confronted with colourist paintings to create a diverse and contrasting collection. With Katerina Sluneckova’s work you can take a deep dive into the possibilities of digital artwork, as she is a visual artist that works with video projections, figurative painting and animation.
If you want to dip your toes in the space, this will be a great way to start collecting art in Web3.