Some of the best NFT artists and projects of 2021

BEEPLE

After selling an NFT collage for a record $69 million at Christie’s, Mike Winklemann, who goes by the name Beeple , is now the third most valuable living artist (after David Hockney and Jeff Koons ). This digital work is titled Everydays: the First 5,000 Days , and consists of a collage of 5,000 digital images created by Winkelmann for his Everydays series.. This 13-year project involved creating a new piece of art every day and posting it online. This prolific artist continues to create and post his new pieces almost daily, and has even worked on concert footage for Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Childish Gambino, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, and more.

VHILS

Vhils , a world-famous street artist, jumped into the world of NFTs this year with a project called The End of the Industrial Era . Known for his explosive art (literally) that turns crumbling facades into canvases for poignant portraits of marginalized locals, Vhils decided to turn his process into an NFT series. Thus, he decided to use his unique technique to turn a dilapidated building in Portugal into an ephemeral work of art. The building suffered an explosion, a portrait was revealed and the site was destroyed by implosion in two seconds. It was all captured on video that was later auctioned off at Nifty Gateway., a digital art auction platform for non-fungible tokens that recently started a collaboration with Sotheby’s auction house.

ALEXA MEADE

Earlier this year, artist Alexa Meade chatted with us (on My Modern Met’s Top Artist podcast ) about NFTs and the coming art revolution. Since then, it has held several successful auctions. In this new digital age of auctions, Meade has found a way to turn her body painting masterpieces into digital collectibles for art connoisseurs. Previously, her work was only available as limited edition physical photographic prints, but NFTs have allowed fans to now own her video art pieces that can be viewed in motion, as the artist originally intended.

BREAKFAST

Brooklyn, New York-based art collective BREAKFAST is best known for its kinetic art installations that fuse technology and art. Its interactive screens allow viewers to be part of the piece. Now, they have turned a physical kinetic artwork, titled Longyearbyen Warming, in an NFT Generator that seeks to raise awareness of climate change while also providing a portion of the profits to Teen Cancer America. BREAKFAST artist and co-director Zolty says, “What makes this NFT artwork unique is that while it looks like it was digitally rendered, it is actually a video that was shot of a kinetic artwork in a very important moment in history: the COP26 climate change summit.” Within hours of Miami Art Week, the NFT sold for $85,000.

HASHMASKS

Hashmasks is an Ethereum-based virtual art gallery collection of 16,384 unique digital portraits created by 70 artists from around the world. The creators say: “All Hashmasks are rare, but some are rarer than others.”

FEWOCIOUS

Victor Fewocious, 18 years old (and simply known as FEWoCIOUS ) is an American transgender artist who began making digital art in an attempt to overcome boredom and a sense of isolation. He sold his first painting at 17; and within a year he sold a series of NFTs that raised over $17 million. His work focuses on capturing snapshots of his own memories and feelings growing up.

JOHN ORION YOUNG (JOY WORLD)

John Orion Young is a 3D artist who sells animated characters and figurines as NFTs. One of his collections is a series of “Joy” characters that are “handmade in virtual reality.” Each collectible NFT Development looks like a surreal creature from another world and comes with a unique magical power. Young’s most recent NFT titled The Persistence of Time , is a slug-like creature that is “thinning through the cosmic verses in a thick layer of meta-melted mucus.”

BLAKE KATHRYN

Blake Kathryn , from Los Angeles, describes herself as a “3D artist with a surreal and futuristic aesthetic”. His striking work is characterized by vibrant color palettes and “ethereal hues,” and often includes robotic female characters that look like something out of a sci-fi movie. Thanks to her successful NFT sales and business collaborations, Kathryn is currently one of the leading artists in digital illustration.

AXIE INFINITY

Inspired by Pokémon, Axie Infinity is a digital pet universe where players use their own lovable characters called Axies in games (and earn money while doing so). More than a million users log into the desktop and mobile platform daily to buy land, equipment, and take care of their Axies , which they can choose to sell for cryptocurrency.

Axie Infinity made headlines recently when a Genesis Land Plot sold for 550 ETH (the Ether cryptocurrency), which was worth $2.3 million at the time of sale. According to the Axie Infinity team, this is the “largest sum ever paid for a single parcel of digital land.” As of this writing, Axie Infinity has had around 10 million sales and is valued at around $3.52 billion, making it the largest collection of NFTs of all time.

CRYPTOPUNKS

CryptoPunks are among the earliest examples of NFTs. Created by Larva Labs , they are a collection of 10,000 unique pixel art characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Most of them look like punk-style humans, but there are also some weird characters like apes, zombies, and aliens. CryptoPunks was the inspiration for the standard interface for non-fungible tokens Development, also known deeds or deeds, which is now driving most of the CryptoArt movement. No two CryptoPunks are alike, and each can only be owned by one person at a time on the Ethereum blockchain. All 10,000 are already owned, so now people are bidding or selling their CryptoPunk. According to the Larva Labs website, the total value of all CryptoPunk sales is currently 594.2k ETH.

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