It is only in the past decade that digital art has begun to gain attention and popularity as people started to appreciate intricate and impactful artworks created using digital technology. Illustrations, animations, 2D and 3D art and other digital art forms are generating more and more recognition because of their unique quality, depth and impact.
Beeple’s Digital Art Sold For Millions
Just last March 11th, Mike Winkelmann, the man behind the digital artist named Beeple, sold a non-fungible token or NFT of his collaged JPG file artwork for a whopping $69.3 million in a first-of-its-kind online auction held at the Christie’s. His digital artwork titled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” is a collage of all the images that Beeple has posted online each day since 2007.
The sale of Everydays is described by Christie’s as a truly rare work in digital art’s history. The sale has made Beeple among the top three most valuable living artists of today. Everydays was bought by NFT Fund Metapurse headed by Vignesh Sundaresan. After the sale, Metapurse operator Anand Venkateswaran said that someday this digital artwork will be worth a billion dollars, adding that Everydays could be this generation’s work of art.
Most Popular Types of Digital Art
Fractal or algorithmic art is a type of digital art that involves the use of mathematics, and it combines the generative art and the computer art. Meanwhile, data-moshing is a form of digital art that manipulates media files to produce images and visual effects once the file is decoded.
Dynamic painting is the most advanced form of digital art, and its process includes a computer that paints a picture or an art with minimal physical labor. Another type of digital art is 2D computer graphics where 2D dimensional models of images and texts are used in animations and projects. Meanwhile, 3D computer graphics is a level-up version of 2D computer graphics because it represents 3D dimensional models of texts and images.
Pixel art is the type of digital art used in images and videos for games, movies, and other aesthetic ventures. Arguably, the most popular type of digital art is digital photography, which uses digital cameras to capture the most perfect and most detailed shots.
Other popular types of digital art are photo-painting, digital collage, 2D digital painting, 3D digital painting, manual vector drawing, integrated art/mixed media and hybrid painting, raster painting, and computer-generated painting.
Most Famous Digital Artists
Alberto Seveso is famous for his high-speed underwater photography art series such as Disastro Ecologico, Medicina Rossa, and A Due Colori. Stephen Mcmennamy has invented “combophotos” where he combines photographs of highly unrelated objects through Photoshop to create amazing new images.
Nik Ainley, a digital illustrator from the UK, is popular for his graphics and illustrations inspired by the world of science and he has worked with National Geographic, Starbucks, and Nike. Another famous digital artist is Jason Naylor, with works characterized by using bright colors on rich black backgrounds and spreading artistic messages with themes of kindness and positivity.
Other popular digital artists are Sara Ludy, Irina French, David McLeod, Sean Charmatz, Aiste Stancikaite, and Rachel Walpole.
How Digital Art is Criticized
Even with all the accolades that digital art and digital artists have been receiving, many still criticize and refuse to accept digital art as an authentic form of art. Critics say that digital art reduces the role of the artist since technology is the one that does all the hard work.
However, digital art has been very present in our society today. It can be found in renowned museums, cinematography, animated films, fashion, graphic design, interior, and many more platforms. Digital art is authentic art since it cannot and will not be formed without the idea and the creativity of an artist. Digital technology is the vehicle or medium of digital artists.
The Rise of Digital Art Now
With the growing popularity of digital art nowadays, it is right to presume that this form of art is on the rise. Since digital art uses digital technology, the more the technology evolves, the more the digital art blooms. Soon, more and more digital art forms will be created and more and more digital artists will be born and recognized as among the top and most valuable artists of the new generation.
