As the media spotlight has turned on the burgeoning crypto art movement, the focus has predominantly been on the staggering sales of NFT artworks such as Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Beeple, the Nyan Cat meme by Chris Torres or CryptoPunks by John Watkinson and Matt Hall. The artists are noticeably all men. However, women crypto artists are also making name for themselves. And they are fighting for this rising art movement to be free of gender inequality. I talked to some of the women working with NFTs about what this new art form means for them.
A World Without Barriers
Anne Louise Simpson is a digital artist from Scotland who began minting her work in 2019. She has found the practice of creating digital art and selling it on online marketplaces far more open and inclusive than other art forms. She tells me it feels free of the “old obstacles”.
“You don’t have to ‘know someone’ to get accepted onto a platform… to get the OK from an outdated patriarchal institution to become a crypto artist,” Simpson says. “You don’t have [to] smash through a corporate glass ceiling to be successful.”
For Simpson, the opportunities that the world of crypto art provides have been indispensable. Having given up a career in law to raise a family, Simpson found herself in financial uncertainty after her divorce. “In Scotland, unlike a lot of the world, the financial impact on mothers who get divorced can be punitive,” she says. Crypto art was her salvation. She already had a background in analog art. At this point, though, she began tokenizing and selling digital art to support herself and her children. Although these initial sales were small, she has since become a successful crypto artist. “It has changed my life,” she says.
Art Over Gender
Krista Kim is a contemporary artist whose NFT Mars House recently sold for over $500,000. She tells me that working with crypto art and NFTs has been an experience of “no barriers”. In January, she began putting her art on digital marketplace SuperRare. She describes the platform as “very supportive of diversity and access.” For Kim, the crypto art market has real potential to be free of gender inequality and without obstacles for women crypto artists. “This is the most merit based art market that I have experienced, where the art speaks for itself, regardless of your traditional art world credentials,” she says.
For Kim, the conversation should be focused on the strength of the artwork, not on the gender of the artist. “Great work gets noticed on these platforms and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from,” she says. “Female artists are gaining traction in the space and it is great to see.”
A Chance for Change
Although the biggest sales of crypto art have been by men thus far — which Simpson considers evidence of a wider societal problem of gender inequality rather than a failure within the crypto art world — the technology behind digital art suggests this trend could be bucked. The decentralized blockchain technology at the root of NFTs and crypto art is “revolutionary” according to Simpson. “The opportunity that decentralisation offers female artists is mind-blowing,” she says.
The possibility of economic equity of blockchain technology heralds growing equality in the art world for women and other groups in society traditionally on the periphery. “The laws of my country enabled poverty following my divorce whereas the blockchain enabled my financial freedom as a mother,” Simpson says. “There doesn’t get anything more explicit than that.”
Kim sees decentralization as the key to a rise in “co-creation and collaboration” in all areas of industry. “I believe in the rise of the creative class and sovereignty of Creatives’ careers,” she says. “[The] System will begin to revolve around the creative class, which will create a more humane and empathetic culture.”
Women Helping Women
To improve opportunities for female-identifying artists in the digital art world, there are now supportive groups and collectives. One such community is Women of Crypto Art. It is “a celebration of the vast amount of female talent out there that may not have been previously showcased in other exhibitions,” as the website states. NFT artists and collectors Etta Tottie, Angie Taylor, Stina Jones, GiselXFlorez, and Sparrow established the collective in 2020. Through the group, artists who identify as women can share ideas and knowledge in a bid to amplify their presence in the world of crypto art.
Simpson, along with a group of other female crypto artists, is launching “Mothers of Ethereum”. This will be an exhibition presenting the work of female crypto artists who are also mothers. “This will help to bring awareness of how many mothers are involved in the scene as well as hopefully inspiring other mothers and women to get involved,” Simpson says.
