The mural artists or mural artists of the world today are also included in the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) hype wave. For your information, in addition to visual and digital art, NFT has now also penetrated into “street art”—with murals as a part of it.
In fact, the mural itself is a work of art. However, the term mural is often attached to a negative connotation because it is often associated with acts of vandalism. In fact, not all murals are like that.
On the other hand, mural artists are known to have special skills in drawing, which are not inferior to other artists. Now, many of them are starting to dive into the world of NFT. In the digital world, they also managed to get a lot of choices from selling these artworks.
However, before discussing the list of mural artists, below, we will explain the meaning of murals and how they differ from graffiti—which is also often mistaken for the same thing, even though they are different.
Mural Artists: What is Mural and How is it Different from Graffiti
The long history of murals in the world goes back 31,500 years. This mural is in prehistoric times. At that time, there was a painting depicting a cave in Lascaux—Southern France. At that time, this mural was made with fruit juice as watercolor—in prehistoric times, the paint didn’t exist.
The mural itself is known to come from the Latin, “Murus”, which means “wall”. However, in general, the term mural now means the activity of drawing/painting a picture on a wall, wall, or other large media that is permanent. From this understanding, it is known that any painting or drawing that is made on permanent media, such as floors, tables, ceilings, is included in the type of mural work.
The difference with graffiti is that if a mural is an image that is made more free and broad, graffiti is actually in the form of writing or words. In this day and age, graffiti is often made using spray paint.
As for graffiti or graffiti itself is scribbled on the wall, which uses a composition of color, line, shape, and volume to write certain words, symbols, or sentences. In the past, graffiti was made by brushing paint using a brush/chalk.
In addition, murals and graffiti also have differences regarding the approach between each of these paintings. That’s because a lot of graffiti is drawn freely and doesn’t always have a clear meaning. This is different from murals in general, which are paintings/pictures.
List of Mural Artists Who Successfully Sell Their Murals as NFT
With the rapid development of today’s technology, mural artists have begun to enter the world of NFT. In this case, they have changed their unique artwork to be even more unique by making it an NFT. Among the many mural artists who have ventured into the NFT world, here is a list of 5 “wall painting” artists who are very famous in the world and have successfully sold their murals as NFT.
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Loro Masnah
Loro Masnah, a mural artist from Colombia, last October drew a mural on a wall in Williamsburg. The mural—which was drawn by his team—is a replica or imitation of a well-known NFT collection that had previously been sold. For collectors who want to get a share of his mural art, the artist also opens the opportunity by first buying his special NFT collection, “Another Flex on the Wall”.
In addition, there are also a number of NFT collections that Loro Masnah has successfully reproduced, including Cool Cat “The Beast” 2665.
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Pascal Boyart
This mural art by this artist, “Liberty Leading the People”, was gaining hype. Not only on the wall, his work was then also converted into digital form, then made into NFT. The next work from Boyart which is also sold in NFT form is “Contemplations of the Red Jester”. At the end of last February, this mural sold for $112,000.
Like Loro Masnah, Boyart has so far digitized a number of his murals to the NFT version.
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Jason Peterson
Peterson, who is a photographer by profession, has collaborated with artist Tubszilla to draw a mural which was later converted to NFT form.
The image is a conceptual portrait of Kanye West and in order to appreciate the millions of visitors who have visited the location of the mural, at Chicago’s West Loop, Peterson then converted the mural into NFT form. Uniquely, a QR code is also available on the mural. When scanned, the names of the owners of the NFT will appear.
Last October, the NFT was successfully auctioned and released at a price of 1512 AVAX or approximately $119,296.
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Austin Zucchini-Fowler
“Healthcare Hero” is a famous work by Austin Zucchini-Fowler. Then, the mural artist launched the NFT of his work. The mural itself is located on Colfax Avenue, which tells the story of the struggle of health workers in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. After converting it to NFT, Zucchini-Fowler then auctioned the work on March 31—April 12, 2021.
In addition, Zucchini-Fowler has also released many of his murals in NFT format.
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Shepard Fairey
The next mural artist on this list is Shepard Fairey. The iconic contemporary street artist is also known to have penetrated the NFT ecosystem by selling his digital works on the Superrare marketplace. Meanwhile, “Obey Ideal Power”, the name of Fairey’s work, was auctioned on March 29, 2021. Fairey was accompanied by several other artists who were also in the NFT ecosystem, including Neïl Beloufa and Petra Cortright.
