Beeple. Fewocious. Andrés Reisinger. That guy who made Nyan Cat. As the market for NFT artworks explodes, the majority of the artists benefitting from the sudden boom are men—reflecting both the longstanding dominance of male artists in the international art market and the lack of gender diversity in the technology field.
“The NFT world is currently flooded with white men,” artist Michele Pred told Artnet News. “I want to change that.”
In an effort to reverse the trend, Pred, along with artists Bud Snow and Wildcat Ebony Brown are marking International Women’s Day by launching their first NFT art sale. The trio of feminist artists want to ensure that women aren’t missing out on the chance to break into this emerging art and technology marketplace.
“We’re selling on International Women’s Day to make the statement that women artists will not be left behind in this new space,” Pred said in a statement. “We want to see more diversity in the work being shared in digital marketplaces, and we want to see BIPOC women especially benefitting from this boom.”
One exception to the trend is the Canadian musician Grimes, who sold $5.8 million worth of her NFT art last month. (Grimes is dating tech entrepreneur and cryptocurrency fan Elon Musk.)
Pred, Snow, and Brown are selling their NFT artworks on Opensea.io, an NFT marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain. Each work comes with a contract ensuring that the artist will receive a 10 percent resale royalty in the event that the artwork is later resold.
“Artists of all disciplines are approaching this new technology with excitement,” wrote Snow on Instagram. “It allows the artist to make worldwide sales without the need for a third party [like a gallery], it gives the artist and the collector a peer-to-peer contract which defines the parameters of the piece, and distinguishes a resale royalty for the artist.”
An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique digital token living on a blockchain—allowing one person to own a digital good, such as an image or animation.
Pred has created a digital version of Accountability Now, a billboard installation responding to the January 6 attack on the US capitol. The work, which is currently on view in Houston, took on added significance in the wake of Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s decision to fly to Cancun during the state’s recent heat, water, and power outages. The work is for sale through March 29.
Brown’s NFT is a digital take on her performance and installation piece The Cosmic Love Connection, in which she takes on the form of an Afro-futuristic, intergalactic love goddess. The artwork, on sale through March 19, will come with a custom video message for the purchaser.
Each NFT sale of Snow’s psychedelic iPad drawings, a seven-piece collection she has titled “Joyful Metamorphosis,” will fund the realization of the design as a public art mural—the higher the price of each work, the bigger the physical mural. Her auction concludes March 23.
Pred, Snow, and Brown hope that other female artists will look into selling work digitally. They will hold a Clubhouse conversation tonight called “NFT Time: International Women’s Day Art Drop.”