MakersPlace is a premier market for truly rare digital artworks — digital art where its authenticity and rarity is guaranteed by blockchain technology.
Welcome to the June 2020 edition of the MakersPlace Newsletter, where we feature the latest updates from the artists, collectors and the company. This month we’re excited to share updates on our Drop program, notable artists and collectors, our newest feature rollouts, and some exciting upcoming events.
Drops 🔥
Each week we feature original, never-before-seen artworks by prominent digital artists on MakersPlace. These Drops serve as a great way for collectors to discover new artists each week, as well as an opportunity for artists to gain exposure across our community and of course sell their artworks. We are pleased to report that our drop program continues to be a success for participating artists.
Here are the notable drops from this past month:
1. Investors Dream — Javier Arres
Purchased by MantaXR for 14 ETH (~$2,943)
2. All that Remains — Trevor Jones
Purchased by Basileus for 18 ETH (~$4,226)
3. Anatomy of the Humanoid — FrenetikVoid
Purchased by MantaXR for 10 ETH (~$2,069)
You can check out all of our previous drops here.
Artist Spotlight — Vakseen
This month we’re highlighting Vakseen. Vakseen is a multi-disciplinary artist who has achieved great success in both the music and visual art landscapes. His artwork has been exhibited around the world and featured in many famed publications. He is also an acclaimed producer and recording artist.
Vakseen is best known for two different styles: One is his “Pop Pop Collection” series of pop culture icons such as Prince, 2Pac, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Kobe Bryant, and Aaliyah. These colorful, electrifying depictions are quite popular amongst our collectors and artists alike — Essentially every “pop pop” portrait he’s published has sold a number of editions, most have sold multiple. After all, who wouldn’t want to honor their favorite pop icon through art?
Another one of his signature styles has been coined “Vanity Pop.” It consists of vibrant, photorealistic portraits that give the illusion of a collage, but are actually completely hand-painted. These portraits are a celebration of the acute imperfections and endless perfections every woman possesses. This unique style is not only highly praised within our digital community, but across the global arts community as a whole. It’s been featured on album covers, printed on shirts and bags, and purchased by celebrities.
We recently featured Vakseen in a Drop this past month to spotlight the release of two never before seen, original creations, Rasberry Jenèe and Empty Promises.
Vakseen was also kind enough to sit down with us for an Ask Me Anything, answering questions submitted from our community members. Check out the transcribed interview here.
For “Rasberry Jenèe”, Vakseen swapped his paint brush for a stylus to capture his signature pop art portrait style in a digital form. This artwork is inspired by current events and represents youth, brilliance, independence & individuality. Her hair is pink, her eyebrows blue, her eyes are kissed with shades of purple — Jenèe is is not afraid of standing out, she doesn’t care what you think.
Collector Spotlight
The most active collectors last month by volume and activity were:
Moderats, whose current collection is filled with futuristic, surrealist artworks with a steam punk vibe.
MantaXR, whose current collection consists of other worldly, fantasy style art often possessing some form of contemporary abstraction.
Collecting digital art is like an addiction for me. I love to find new artists and artworks every day, maybe even those whose potential has not yet been recognized by many.
I sometimes see people paying a lot of money for artworks, which I can’t understand in some cases. On the other hand, there are great artworks and artists who don’t get great prices because their marketing is not as good as others’. That’s what makes this crypto market so exciting. There are realistic possibilities to find the future Dali or Monet in the Cryptoart and that for little money. In the long run, quality will always prevail, I am convinced of that.
What is important for me as a collector of digital art is authenticity, uniqueness and that an artist remains true to a certain style. I invest primarily in art because I am an art lover, it would be a lie to say that I do not hope for increases in value, but I have no plans to sell artwork. I love each and every one of them, and I’ll take good care of them.
-MantaXR
Basileus.eth, whose current collection can be described as psychedelic sci-fi with a dark, dystopian feel to it.
“All that remains,” the amazing piece by Trevor Jones, is the anchor of my collection on MP; it somehow gives me confidence to explore new artists, artworks and forms …
-Basileus.eth
You can find all of our active collectors and their collections in our Activity Feed, which is updated weekly.
Moderats, MantaXR and Basileus.eth
Each of their collections are truly exceptional and we highly recommend visiting their collections, each of which have been carefully curated by the collectors.
If you’re looking for inspiration from these collectors, here are some of the artists that they’ve recently been collecting from: Ruffensteint, Greg Fiut, Dunja Jung, Pirate Sheep, George Boya, Max Retoka, Valerio Volpi, Mr.Monk and Mikko Lyytinen.
New Features
We are constantly trying to improve and make our site easier to use for both artists and collectors. This month, we made a number of changes based on community feedback. The two most notable additions to our site, listed below, both revolve around improving artists’ overall experience with MakersPlace.
Artist Royalty Increases to 10%
Back in March, we announced our new royalties program, which granted artists a 5% royalty on any secondary sale of their artwork on MakersPlace. Since the launch of this program, we’ve been exploring ways to give more back to our artists, while still making it worth our collectors’ while. Luckily, our collectors have overwhelming expressed the same interest in supporting artists with royalties, thus leading to our new and improved royalty program.
We are excited to announce that we’ve officially increased our royalty amount to 10% (with a 2.5% fee going to MakersPlace). With our new program, artists receive competitive compensation while being mindful of secondary market liquidity.
Preview Mode Helps Artists Avoid Little Mistakes
We commonly see artists publishing artworks onto the blockchain, only to find a mistake in their description or the artwork that they uploaded. Since the blockchain can’t be modified, the only remedy in this situation is to burn the artwork. To help address this problem, we’ve introduced a new option that allows artists to save and preview their artwork before publishing to the blockchain.
Now, artists have the ability to preview and inspect their artwork uploads closely to avoid any small mistakes and the lengthy process that is required to burn them.
Upcoming Events
Quarantine has confined us all to our homes, but that’s not stopping us from hosting a number of fabulous virtual events this month for the MakersPlace community. We hope you join us!
Decentraland Gallery Grand Opening
We are beyond excited to announce the long-awaited launch of our first ever gallery in Decentraland. It’s going to be a great exhibition featuring work from 14 leading digital artists (listed below).
There will also be an auction, special talks with artists and a scavenger hunt with free NFTs up for grabs! Stay tuned and subscribe to our email list for full details on the day’s festivities.
Be sure to mark your calendars for June 26th at 8 PM UTC / 1PM PST and join us for a digital art experience you’ll never forget.
Find details about the opening here.
Featured artists: Greg Notzelman, Pxlpet, Karl Poyzer, George Boya, PhilipXN, KrikCo, GrayMask, Elephai, Gala Mirissa, Forlenza, Katy Arrington, Angga Tantama, Monfa, mare, Federico Paoli, and Javier Arres.
Showcasing CHANGE: A Special MakersPlace Exhibition
We are excited to announce the launch of the MakersPlace #Change Art Showcase, an exhibition of rare digital art inspired by the theme of change. It seems that in recent days, Change has become a salient, powerful theme in our daily lives.
We put out a call to artists to create an artwork that was inspired by the Change. Selected submissions will be showcased in our upcoming Change Art Showcase, and the community will vote on their favorite piece which will receive a special promotion, along with some other exciting prizes. The most engaged community member will also receive a prize. You can learn more about the exhibition here.
Keep these important dates in mind:
Submissions close June 18th at 11:59pm PST
Change Exhibition opens in Cryptovoxels June 19th at 5pm PST
Community voting period June 19th — June 23rd 11:59pm PST
Winners announced June 24th at 1pm PST
We hope to “see” you there!
Get in Touch
If you’re a digital creator, you can learn more about MakersPlace here.
Ready to start your rare digital art collection? Join here.
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