Artist ThankYouX’s career from LA street art to NFTs

ThankYouX is one of the most in-demand contemporary artists working in the digital realm today. As well as releasing collaborations with partners ranging from Soho House and Samsung to Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, he’s also one of a handful of producers to ride the NFT wave.

Rewind to the beginning of the last decade and ThankYouX, a young graphic designer, had begun to make his name in a traditionally analog art world: the Los Angeles graffiti scene. Using image editing software such as Photoshop and Illustrator, he began creating stencils of Pop Art icon Andy Warhol, then spray-painted them on the walls along with his tag, “Thank You X”.

Soon, however, ThankYouX was looking for something more fulfilling. He began to look to artists such as Frank Stella and Cy Twombly. “I asked myself, ‘Well, what’s my version of that era’s work?'” he tells Christie’s. “I went through all these different phases in my studio, like totally abstract, minimalist and sculptural things.”

A breakthrough moment came when ThankYouX combined the digital skills he had used in his day job with these newfound painting ambitions. “I jumped into virtual reality around 2016. I would sit in a virtual room for hours and just paint these abstract worlds through my glasses. I thought it would be the next big thing.

Not long after he started working in VR, ThankYouX was commissioned to create an immersive installation at Soho House Miami during Art Basel. But it didn’t take long for the artist to realize the limits of technology.

“It was an experiential thing, but afterwards it was like: OK, you can put it on Facebook… but that’s it,” he recalls. “I was doing all these digital things but hit this wall. It was really cool, but not going anywhere. For example, you would have to send things via email and then download a specific app that had the right capabilities to display it. There were just a lot of friction points that didn’t make sense. For example, what if you didn’t have a Samsung phone or Facebook?

Fortunately, in 2020 ThankYouX received an email flagging a new technology that would solve his dilemma.

‘I got a link that said, “Have you checked out this non-fungible token thing?” I thought, I don’t know what it is, but I don’t have time for that. I was doing pretty well selling paintings. But a week later they sent it to me again and told me to pay attention, so I replied, “Can you just explain it to me quickly?”

The ensuing conversation sparked a memory from 2017. “Back then I had been talking to a friend about these things called CryptoKitties, which were cats on the blockchain that people bought and bred and sold. At first I thought it sounded silly, but then I thought, “What if I did it with art?” So when I had NFTs explained to me in 2020, it was a real “Aha!” moment.’

Thanks to the collaboration with a photographer friend called JN Silva, ThankYouX worked on its first series of NFTs. “We looked at the space and didn’t see anything like what we did,” he says. “It was all 3D models of mannequins spinning in a circle or whatever. We had the idea of ​​taking my friend’s photos with my abstract shapes flying through them.

“Making NFTs gave me the same feeling I got when I used to go out in the middle of the night and paint the streets,” he adds. “You’d meet another artist doing the same thing and you’d become friends. It felt like this underground movement right under the art world’s nose. And for a long time the attitude that came our way was, “It’s not real art, just some creepy kids doing some illegal stuff.”

The couple got in touch with online NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway, only to find that the company had already been trying to contact them for months.

“The founder, Duncan Cock Foster, sent me a DM saying, ‘We have this marketplace on the blockchain where you can sell your work’, but I didn’t see it because it was in my junk folder, and even if I had, it would have sounded looked like a scam. But then we went for it and thought, ‘Well, let’s fail, but at least be a part of it.’

ThankYouX + JN Silva, Avenue of the AmericasNFT minted on December 30, 2022 (Nifty Gateway)

The drop was so successful that Nifty Gateway asked the pair to make a second series right away.

ThankYouX admits he didn’t expect NFTs to turn out to be as popular as they have, adding that he initially had to use online forums to discover a like-minded community to help him push the technological boundaries of his art.

What often sets ThankYouX’s digital work apart, however, is its physical element, whether it’s an accompanying painting or a print. In his studio, he reveals a work in progress: a huge painting with a tablet-sized screen built into its surface. The display shows the NFT component 24 hours a day – and, crucially, it cannot be reprogrammed.

“You can look at it one of two ways,” says ThankYouX. “Either you buy the painting, I will transfer the NFT that comes with it. Or you buy NFT on the blockchain with crypto, and you get the painting sent to you.’

The new work builds on an idea ThankYouX had for the 2022 release State of the Artwhich involved cutting four giant paintings into 400 individual tiles.

“You can buy NFT for each section and get the tile with it. Then, on the secondary market, you can buy the tiles around and collect a larger part of the original painting,” he explains.

One industry that has eagerly adopted NFTs, says ThankYouX, is the music industry. He has received collaboration requests from several well-known musicians.

“They were looking for alternative income streams, and then discovered the NFT space,” he explains. “I told my agent, ‘I don’t need a big-name artist to work with me — their name doesn’t mean as much as mine does in this room right now.’

But then came an offer ThankYouX couldn’t refuse. “I paint to Hans Zimmer’s music in my studio. He was the only musician I considered working with on the drop. My agent said, “What if we can get him?” A week later I am sitting in his studio.

“Hans said he didn’t just want to give me a song he had made for me Gladiator years ago, but wanted to start from scratch. It was the perfect scenario for me. He recorded the sound of me painting in my studio and moving my canvases around, making it the final composition. It was such a special experience, going back and forth, I teased him with a picture, then he teased me with a piano.

Does ThankYouX see parallels between the music industry’s use of digital technologies and the way the art market has taken to NFTs?

“I absolutely believe NFTs are here to stay. As more people come on board, it’s going to get there. Auction houses such as Christie’s are attracting interest with the sale of works by artists such as Beeple and FEWOCiOUS. They have given these artists a platform in the physical art world, and it has caused galleries and museums to take notice.’

ThankYouX also makes it clear that he sees a growing divide between some NFTs and others. “It’s like comparing Pokemon cards to Picassos,” he says. Bored Apes are collectibles, not art.

“I think there will be a few more speculative bubbles that come and go, and then NFTs will be a normal thing. I mean, even the Picasso market fluctuates a bit here and there, right?

Does he have any other predictions? “NFTs will hopefully be called something else. Which is a less dirty word in the art world.