Matt Kane
Matt Kane is a Chicago-born artist and self-taught programmer prominently active in the crypto art and NFT scene. He has been an artist for over twenty years, beginning with traditional oil painting and later teaching himself to code in order to better actualize his artistic visions.
In September of 2020, his generative artwork “Right Place & Right Time,” created on Async Art, became the first NFT artwork to sell for over $100,000. Digital art curator and head of community at Foundation, Lindsay Howard, said “people have been experimenting in this space for years, but it was Matt Kane’s sale last year that created a big shift.”
Even more pertinent, Kane’s advocacy for the rights of artists to participate in their own success led to a minimum secondary-sale royalty standard for artists across the NFT industry by early 2020. Kane ended 2020 as the winner of the Most Innovative NFT Award and started 2021 listed among the Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain by Cointelegraph. In the last year, his work has been featured at exhibitions in New York, Miami, Rome, Milan, Beijing, Nanjing, London, and Hong Kong.
This past summer, the NFT for his digital artwork “Meules after Claude Monet” was part of Sotheby’s premier curated NFT sale, “Natively Digital.” In October Kane premiered “The Door,” as the very first custom series smart contract on legendary NFT platform SuperRare. This exciting release was followed days later by Kane’s iconic painting “CryptoArt Monetization Generation” being resold by the fabled cryptoart collector known as YeahYeah to Starry Night Capital for 320 ETH, valued at $1.24 million at time of sale.
Through the custom art studio software he designed, Kane leverages generative algorithms to produce vibrant, richly detailed and multilayered visions addressing the most varied themes, “exploring historical aesthetics with code, doing with geometry what the great painters did with oils.”
“For me, the moon has always been very special. It’s one of the things that always brought my father and I together to share a moment of crooked neck wonderment – whether as a child or an adult. Staring up at and reflecting upon the Moon has marked the most pivotal moments in my life – it’s just something I’ve always instinctively done. I’ll always remember how bright it was the night I gained major gallery representation as a young 24 year old kid. When I realized this Summer that both the Sotheby’s auction and last year’s record sale of Right Place & Right Time both took place under New Moons, Gazers really began to create itself. It was like the code kept telling me to get out of the way and listen! So I did.
That’s the great glory for an artist – when you become the conduit for pure creation. Everything just flows and it’s like every moment you’ve lived becomes understood and valuable in a new energetic way– and there’s no regrets or suffering of your past anymore– just the sheer gratitude for being in the now. I go to sleep excited for what I know I’ll be working on in the morning! That’s the state of grace I hunt as an artist all my life. I’m so grateful that Gazers presented me an opportunity to live that prolonged bliss once more.”
“It’s become my dream for Gazers that it becomes a fixture in the lives of collectors, bringing enjoyment, inspiration, and fascination to future generations.”