If there's one artist who fits the digital renaissance of putting art on the blockchain, it's Matt Kane – a traditional artist who transitioned into digital art by writing his own software and pushing boundaries impossible in the physical art world.
Kane is best known for his “Gathers” collection, which debuted in December 2021 and is considered by many to be the OG among generative artists. He recently released Anons, which focuses on understanding identity through art and not passing true Anons from yesterday.
Ken has spent part of his career as a software developer but has always experimented with a variety of artistic mediums, including physical canvases. However, the limitations of the physical art world have Americans wondering if digital art can remove many of the barriers to improving the vision of creating art.
In my 20s and 30s, I was really trying to find what was the right medium for my voice. I spent a lot of time experimenting with canvas and fabric because I was really interested in pattern. But I realized it wasn't the media that mattered – it was my perspective. It's a way to get my vision and my mind out into the world,” Kane told the magazine.
“With this realization, I knew I had to learn to code because there are so many physical limitations to traditional art. The rule overrides the limitations of our physical body and time. It allows us to express our vision, and it became the perfect medium for me.
Ken had heard about NFTs a week before CryptoPunks started in a Quora article in June 2017, but he remained a spectator as he continued to create and deconstruct digital art, which captured his deep curiosity as an early 18-year-old.
“When I read this [Quora] Article and I talked about NFTs – I understood what Bitcoin was and what the ban was years ago – everything was messed up, and I remember thinking, this is what I want. Digital allows me to sell work, and prints may be an option. What I'm creating is pictures as a database, and this is how I can do it. to transfer files and transfer ownership of the artwork,” says Ken.
Although the year Despite being introduced to the concept of digital art provenance in 2017, it wasn't until May 2019 that Ken made his first NFT M87 Black Hole Deconstruction on SuperRare.
“Just before PunkX, I watched and watched as the space developed. I was Googling blockchain galleries, and there were none. That was where I was at the time. I thought I needed to find a gallery to represent me on the blockchain. Now it's about representing myself and never cutting out the middleman, but at the time I was still in that situation,” Kane says.
“I watched places like Dada, Superrare and NowOrigin come out in the summer of 2018. I kept watching for another six to 12 months and decided to pull the trigger,” he added.
Table of Contents
ToggleLost in the code regarding personal tragedy
Kane's journey to stardom as a digital artist was bittersweet when he lost his best friend to suicide while on tour in 2013. The then 32-year-old was saddened and even struggled with some at one point. His own suicidal thoughts.
“At the time, I had left my life in Seattle trying to find something new and it was already in turmoil. Then losing her – it really threw me off the deep end. I was on the road and about a week away from seeing her. It makes me wonder, have I visited her before? It was horrible,” shared Kane.
“I got to Texas and made some pretty devastating decisions. I found myself in a moment of suicidal thoughts and realized that I was in a very bad place.
“The next day, I bought a train ticket to LA to visit my friend there, and I think I stayed there for a month. It was there that I just took a breather and reassessed my life and where I was. I was looking at my future and realizing how disappointed I was and realizing my desire to join society, to move on with my life. I had wasted years ahead of me, and decided to just start coding.
Ken used coding to distract his mind from the painful baggage he was dealing with.
“It was math, and it was blowing my mind. I couldn't think about emotions or depression. It was almost like I needed to figure out how to use sine and cosine to make this brush. It was about building a tool for expression in the future when it would be safe to redefine my ideas,” says Kane.
Had it not been for the tragedy of losing a loved one, Kane says he would not have pursued the artistic path he is now so famous for.
“It's one of the things that I seem to have had a lot of struggles with in the last few years leading up to success because if I hadn't lost her, I would never have devoted myself to digital art in the way that I have. And that's really hard because I would change all the successes to get her back into the world, but things can't be changed.
Personal style
Much of Kane's work features a clean use of color and reflects his sense of history and time.
“I think my hope is that my art represents a time, especially with Gazer. What I'm trying to convey is not any emotion. I think we all bring our own experiences, and if the imagery I'm doing in my art or anything really resonates with me in a strong way, it's really a strong emotion with others.” I always believe it creates.
Gazers inspired by caves
While often clichéd, NFTs are still incredibly new. Ken says we're in “prehistoric times for NFTs,” and the inspiration for Gators dates back to caveman days.
Drawing on his passion and ability to work with paint, Gathers is a 1,000-piece collection centered around the moon and acts as a sort of lunar calendar for blockchain.
“People on Twitter have been talking about how we're in the caveman days of NFTs. And what surprised me – he made one of these constellation connections for me. I know our caveman ancestors recorded step calendars on ankle bones. […] And they use that to understand when to go, at what time, to attack mammoths,” Kane says.
The project's website describes it as: “Algorithmically closely synchronizing the phases of the moon in the sky, joining blockchain with humanity's longest running line in art.” Geathers seeks to create a community of collectors that celebrates the evolution of our thinking over time, our shared goals in the crypt, and our love of color theory, astronomy, and generative art.
Launched by Art Blocks Curated in December 2021, Gatherers has made over 8,800 ETH in secondary sales on OpenSea and still commands a 12.6 ETH floor despite being in an NFT bear market. Gazers are flexible and have rules built into them. While we have different rules, similarities can be drawn to 0xDEAFBEEF's “Entropy”, which has built-in rules that reduce quality when trading NFTs.
“The way each gazer works creates a color theory about it. It has different rules, so each month different rules are created that indicate the color of your moon and sky. The frame around it is the same, but the sky and moon change. Then we track the lunations on the website, So we have little previews to go back to history,” Ken explains.
“The phase of the moon changes over time, and some observers are clocks—all clocks. But some can track minutes and hours, and those are pretty cool settings because they play with the moon phases in so many layers.
“When I was making Gatherers, I was thinking about the future of artwork. It speeds up over time. Every year, each artwork speeds up an average of one frame per second.”
Also read
Art week
Connecting the Dots: Collection and Collaboration in the World of Crypto Art
Main characteristics
$3.4B Bitcoin in a Popcorn Can: The Story of the Silk Road Hacker
Popular sales to date
Quick-fire question and answer
Effects
“I'm very flexible, so it's amazing, but Andy Kaufman [entertainer] It is one. I first became interested in comedy and Andy Kaufman was the comedian who made me realize that comedy is actually an art. It led me from comedy to fine art. I also get around Mark Rothko [American abstract painter]. I really like his work and layering of these very thin layers of paint. I was studying his work in my early twenties, and I still live by the lessons I learned.”
“Also, artists love JOY [John Orion Young] and Josie Bellini. When I came in here, they were very self-representative. They were not using brokers. They haven't used brokers that much in their careers on blockchain and I've always admired that. In addition, they are wonderful artists in their own right. I like that principle, so releasing Anons on my own terms was a big deal because I feel like I'm joining you guys now, kicking out the middleman.
Which hot NFT artists should we pay attention to?
AwfulEye: “He's legally blind in one eye, but he's still painting on an iPad. I think he's very close. Lately he has been creating some coding projects with the help of artificial intelligence. I find it amazing that you have a visually impaired artist using AI to help you visualize your vision. To me, it's one of the reasons we have AI for the benefit of humanity.
Panther Zeta: “I was really a big fan of Panther. She is Argentinian and a real person. She is wonderful.”
Your favorite NFT in your wallet
My Alotta Money piece is, “Bitcoin will fix this.
Famous collectors
“I think it's focused on the community. They all still make me smile. They are on Discord or X. [formerly Twitter] They keep you up-to-date on what they think and feel. They are always present in my life.
Who do you listen to when creating art?
“Italian Disco. Plus Giorgio Moroder. This is the playlist I listen to when I create announcements.”
Links
X: twitter.com/MattKaneArtist
Instagram: instagram.com/mattkanartist
Website: mattkane.com
Subscribe
A very engaging read in Blockchain. It is given once a week.
Greg Oxford
Greg Oakford is co-founder of NFT Fest Australia. A former marketing and communications professional at Sports World, Greg now focuses on content creation and consulting at Web3. He is an avid NFT collector and hosts a weekly podcast covering all things NFTs.
Follow the author @GregOakford
