‘It’s a big message to the century-old art market’: 18-year-old NFT star Diana Sinclair on how she’s taking on the blue-chip art world

Bidding went live yesterday for the first time on Christie’s 3.0, the auction house’s new NFT platform which enables sales to be carried out entirely on the blockchain.

To kick off the new initiative, the auction house partnered with 18-year-old artist Diana Sinclair, a rising young digital art force, who is selling nine NFTs, all minted just a week ago, on the platform through October 11.

Sinclair began creating art as a preteen on the doodle app Draw Something before she began photographing psychedelic portraits in shades that evoke heat maps. In November 2021, Sinclair worked with Whitney Houston’s estate on an NFT that featured a never-before-seen video of the singer — and it sold for $1 million.

Last year, Fortune named Sinclair one of its 50 most influential figures in the NFT space, and this week she joined UTA and its growing roster of digital artists.

We caught up with Sinclair to talk about how she got started in digital art, what the Christie’s sale means to her, and her hopes for the NFT space in the future.

Diana Sinclair, Doomsday. A frame from the clip at 43 seconds.

Before experimenting with Draw Something, did you have any desire to become a professional artist? How did you get into photography?

Somehow, I always knew I wanted to have a career in the arts. It wasn’t until my teenage years that I started actively pursuing different career paths to see what stuck with me. I was working with traditional media when the thought of a film career started to pique my interest, so I applied for a scholarship to join SVA’s summer intensive in 2019, and that’s where I was first introduced to a camera. From then on I had something of an obsession with photo and video work and switched almost entirely to photography.

What were your hopes and fears going into NFTs in the early days?

As a brand new market without an established culture, I had high hopes for the transformation over time, but I was also concerned that it would follow the traditional exclusionary routes of other markets. For me as an artist who grew up working in digital media, I was very excited to find a place where digital art was celebrated. In the beginning, the space was in such an early stage of development that experimentation was rewarded, especially as a young artist. It gave me so much joy to see artists of all levels come together like that.

Do you consider “The Digital Diaspora,” a show you curated at the Superchief gallery last year, to be your big break, or was it another watershed?

I see big breaks as hard to define because the more you expand, the bigger your audience becomes, the higher levels you reach. Everything then feels like the next “big break”, because you keep going up and growing. “The Digital Diaspora” exposed me as an artist to a much wider audience than I had ever had before. It started as a project solely meant for the community working in the NFT and crypto space, but I think the message of the show resonated with artists and people who maybe had no interest in the digital art space, but had an interest in seeing work by black people artists celebrated.

Was it intimidating working on Whitney Houston’s estate at just 17 years old?

A little, but Whitney’s family was more than accommodating and I felt encouraged to create work in my vision. As an artist, it is the most liberating thing. I felt connected to Whitney’s career as someone who quickly rose to fame through her art at a young age, yet maintained her values ​​and artistic integrity throughout her journey. As someone who now experiences it in a completely different space and time, I still think there is a lot to learn from her.

How did this partnership with Christie’s come about and why was it attractive to you?

After speaking with Christie’s about a few different avenues for collaboration, Lesley [Silverman] from UTA stepped in when we started working together and established a solid plan that would enable us to create a monumental partnership. Christie’s taking this first step as a global auction house is a big message to the rest of the centuries-old art market that digital art and blockchain technology are a legitimate form of expression. As a young artist, and especially one who grew up seeing artists in my family being dismissed due to discrimination, I feel so strongly about being part of a moment that indicates a larger shift in the arts.

Diana Sinclair, I am what I am. Estimate: 6 – 8 ETH.

Tell me about this nine-part series for Christie’s. Are they real images, or do they have animations or tools?

The nine-part series consists of four experimental video artworks and five photographs, which are also printed on 10-foot semi-transparent scrims. The four video artworks are dynamic and responsive to time. The beautiful thing about the blockchain and digital art is that we are able to create art that can have a life-changing existence. For this exhibition, which is strongly focused on impermanence, there was no better way to create these works.

For example, the artwork titled “River Over Stone” is a representation of the way our memories degrade over time. By running the original artwork through OpenAI’s DALL-E, I created 51 new versions of the image. Weekly, the artwork will be updated on the blockchain showing the next step in the series, and over time you’ll see how this first moment completely changes visually, in tone and in meaning. It is a picture of how truth in life is just perception.

What is new in your practice in terms of subject matter and style in this series? Did the opportunity push or inspire you?

This project served as a huge growth step for me. The opportunity itself I think was a clear reason for me to rise to the occasion to create a series of works that spoke to the different conceptual levels possible with digital art. I spent a very long time before I ever had the idea to sit with my thoughts and unpack what I wanted to say. So of course the process was so experimental and difficult, but it forced me to implement that allowance for flow that I communicated with the actual art I was creating. Even now, as I release the piece into the public eye, I remind myself that the only thing I can control is myself and my perception. That the phase for it to just be something of me is over, and it’s okay to let it go and experience something new.

What impact do you hope this drop will have on blockchain and the art world?

This is the first chain auction held by a global auction house, is in itself a representation of a paradigm shift happening in the art world and our way of consuming digital art. That is also why I think that the themes [this NFT series] “Phases” look at is so relevant to this shift in culture. We are actively experiencing this historic moment which is incredibly special. I hope that the work acts as a conversation starter for the presence we have in these moments, but also in our daily lives. So much is changing, which can feel very scary, but if we can release our attachments to permanent structures in life, I think our experience of these phases, which are so naturally human, will be vastly improved.

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