MakersPlace is the premier market for truly rare digital artworks — digital art where its authenticity and rarity is guaranteed by blockchain technology.
Welcome to the February 2021 edition of the MakersPlace Newsletter, where we fill you in on all the exciting happenings at MakersPlace including notable artwork drops, artist and collector updates and upcoming events.
Four Million Dollars in Artwork Sales!
We are excited to begin the year with another incredible milestone. With the help of the Crypto Art community, we have officially passed our Four Million Dollar sale mark!
Many of you may recall that only last month we were celebrating our two million dollar milestone — the fact that we are already celebrating four million dollars is a huge testament to the growth of the rare digital art space and the dedication of the community behind it. We thank you for your unwavering support and can’t wait to see what this year brings!
Drops 🔥
Each week we feature original, never-before-seen artworks by popular 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.
Here are a few notable drops from last month. You can check out all of our artwork drops of past, present and future here and learn more details about each in the Drops section of our blog.
Anna Zhilyaeva — Emptiness
Anna Zhilyaeva, also known as AnnaDreamBrush, is an immersive artist leading the way in virtual reality painting performance and mixed reality video art. Zhilayeava sought to build a bridge between fine art and technology, essentially creating her own medium in the process: “Volumism”. Her revolutionary artworks and performances have been praised and witnessed by the world, including a 3D live performance at the Louvre Museum and at the Worldskills Competition in front of 45,000+ people.
Zhilyaeva’s thought-provoking debut series on MakersPlace, Emptiness, explores the commodification of human beings — a phenomenon becoming more relevant in today’s consumerism culture. The showcase 1/1 creation, Still Life with Condoms, was sold at auction for $20,000 to CaliforniaBeach, and her multi-edition pieces Cherry(5/5) and Blueberry (10/10) amassed over $22,000 in gross sales.
Javier Arres — Bitcoin, The Origin
Javier Arrés is a world-renowned motion / GIF artist and a 2019 London Art Biennale winner based in Motril, Spain. Arrés is known for his manically detailed illustrations of fantastical scenery highlighting cities, architecture and machines. He brings these worlds to life through what he calls “Visual Toys”.
“Bitcoin, The Origin” explores the historical and cultural impact of the conception of Bitcoin through the artist’s award-winning, maniacal GIF animation style. The 1/1 creation Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?sold at auction for $18,888 tocollector westcoastbill. His Frankenstein-inspired take on the birth of Bitcoin, It’s Alive!, was our first ever open limited edition auction — 67 editions were sold in 15 minutes totaling over in $26,700 in accumulated sales.
KrikCO — Forgotten Desires
KrikCO is a sci-fi digital artist and one of the most prolific sci-fi creators in the crypto art space today. KrikCO, a blockchain enthusiast, has been creating artworks on MakersPlace since its inception.KrikCO’s artwork is centered around possibility. It acts as a teaching tool, presenting viewers with various ideas and future scenarios in which technology, nature, cosmic forces, and humanity intertwine.
KrikCO’s series Forgotten Desires once again pushes the boundaries in an immaculate audiovisual escape that transports the viewer to a surreal world intricately constructed from scratch. A vibrant story skillfully unfolded, these artworks transports us through time to a lush new era in which nature has taken on a new, ethereal form. First Snow (1/1) sold to collector moderats for $4,331 and limited-edition creations Lost Connections (3/3) and Oasis(5/5) accumulated over $7,000 in total sales.
In the month of January, we also had fantastic Drops with Alex Pardee, Shu Lea Cheang, KristyGlas, Wannerstedt, Brendan Dawes, Peter Mohrbacher and Pascal Blanche.
Artist Spotlight: Brendan Dawes
Brendan Dawes is a self-taught digital artist and designer based in the United Kingdom. Through a cocktail of code, and various digital and analogue materials, Dawes seeks to explore the interplay between objects, technology, art and humanity, presenting a poetic new way to interact with data and art in the process. Brendan Dawes’ artwork is rooted in the examination of time, space and memory. It is mostly sculptural and architectural, with nuances, subtleties and understatements playing important exploratory roles for viewers.
Dawes artwork is revered around the world. In 2008, his Cinema Redux, a creation which condenses entire films into a single image, was acquired for the New York MoMa’s permanent collection. This artwork was also part of three MoMA exhibitions as well as thirteen exhibitions across the world as part of the Big Bang Data exhibition. His crypto art genesis creation, Black Mamba’s Revenge, which uses AI to visualize the final fight scene in Kill Bill Vol. One, was long listed for the prestigious Lumen Prize (his second time making the list). Dawes’ artwork has been a part of numerous exhibitions including Art Futura 2020, ZKM Season of Media Arts 2019, and Impression 3D Paris 2016. Dawes has also received The Information is Beautiful award, D&AD, and Fast Company Innovation by Design. His 3D printed work has been displayed in the international space station.
Last month Brendan released his newest series, The Swan, inspired by Natalia Makarova’s 1905 ballet performance of The Dying Swan and a continuation of the technique and style he introduced with the Lumen prize awarded Black Mamba’s Revenge. The series was a quick sell out, generating over $19,000 in total sale. His MakersPlace store is completely sold out, and his artworks currently belong in prominent digital art collections such as the Whale collection and CaliforniaBeach.
Collector Spotlight
moderats — One of the CryptoArt’s space’s prolific collectors, Moderat’s collection is filled with everything from futuristic steam punk to contemporary abstractions and pop art.
R & A Art Collection — The R & A Art Collection is an accumulation of vivid colors, mesmerizing forms and all-around hypnotizing, mystical artworks.
dodo — Dodo’s unique and openminded approach to artwork collection has resulted in a versatile collection is filled with hypnotic motion art, CryptoArt classics and representational creations.
californiabeach — After a relatively recent dive into CryptoArt, californiabeach has quickly filled their iconic collection with stunning artworks rich in symbolism and extremely immersive and contains a number of captivating 3D motion artworks, gif art and vivid illustrations.
jasonlaird — A new collector with eyes on the future of rare digital art and an appreciation for nostalgia, jasonlaird’s collection contains a plethora of pop culture, comic and crypto-centric classics from some of the space’s most prolific artists.
Featured Artists
This past month, we featured a number of amazing artists in our community:
Luz, Tyrone Doyle, Chris Bjerre, javier soler esplugues, wizmo, Yoshi-Hide, scardecc, FAKITO, Joanie Lemercier, Josef Bsharah, Double A, Sozaul, Simulation Lab, Defaced Studio, Alexandre Tamisier, radarboy3000, Frankxtown, MURAT SAYGINER, Joe Chiappetta, skiegraphicstudio, Eleven, SurrealSerpentine, NessGraphics, Josh White, sauce_k, fesq, SamBmotion, Limbo Mask, Miron Oski, Bárbara Bezina, Tanguy CABON, Maria Menshikova Art, Stellabelle, Patric Ortmann, Nadiia Forkosh, Oguz Dogru and Mulligan.
New Features
Timed Auction + Reserve Prices
After many requests from our artist community, we are excited to announce the roll out of our timed auction and reserve price features. Now, artists have the capability of initiating and managing their own timed auctions, as well as setting a visible reserve price on their artworks.
Learn more about how it works here. If you’d like the feature enabled, please reach out to a member of our team on Discord.
Advanced Hide Setting
In the past artists had two display options for their artworks: To publicly display their artworks or to hide them in their stores. We have now introduced a third option, which allows the artwork to remain visible but unpurchasable until a desired time. This is a great option for anyone who’d like to reveal the artwork to garner up hype before releasing it for actual purchase/auction.
To enable this setting, simply select “Hide Upon Publishing” in the Advanced Setting option. Note, this option is only available pre-publishing. When you are ready for the artwork to be live for bids, you can unhide directly on the product page.
Reach out to us on Discord if you have any questions!
Upcoming Events
Tomorrow Exhibition Opening Night — Feb 24th at 4:30 PM PST
Submissions are open for our Tomorrow Exhibition!
For this group exhibition, we are imploring MakersPlace artists to reflect on the theme of “Tomorrow” — What do you hope tomorrow brings for you as an individual? What do you hope it brings for humanity and our society as a whole? What will tomorrow look like? What would it feel like?
Opening Night for this exhibition will be hosted in Cryptovoxels and include talks from artists, a virtual artist toast and the announcement of three participants who will be granted a solo exhibition later this year.
Learn more here.
Women of CryptoArt Exhibition Opening Night — March 8th, Time TBD
We are extremely excited to announce our upcoming Women of CryptoArt Exhibition! In collaboration with Dada.art, WOCA, and UniverseContemporary and in honor of the upcoming International’s Woman Day, we will be spotlighting the artworks of the immensely talented Women creators in the CryptoArt space.
If you are a gallery owner or platform interested in getting involved please reach out to our Community Manager, Aisha, on Discord. If you are an artist who would like to participate, keep your eyes out for our submissions application.
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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