The rise of digital assets has altered the creative landscape as a whole, but how can artists capitalise on this change? We hear from Shavonne Wong, an NFT creator, who built herself from the ground-up in this growing industry.
Story by Halisha Nandwani | Photos by Shavonne Wong & Lenne Chai
For the uninitiated, cryptocurrency (crypto) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) – are digital assets that are intangible, which can be accessed from a device, such as a phone, and cost just as much as a physical object.
In 2021, the crypto and NFTs market boomed after Beeple, a digital artist, auctioned an NFT of his work titled “Everydays – The First 5,000 Days,” where he created a new digital picture every day, for 5,000 days straight. His artwork was sold for US$69 million (estimated S$92,996,475) by Christie’s, a 255-year-old auction house that has sold some of the most famous paintings in history. This blew up the NFT market, and collectors believe its worth is bound to escalate in the near future.
NFTs are tokens that can represent ownership of unique, real-world items digitally, ranging from art pieces to song tracks. It can either be one-of-a-kind or one copy of many and can be bought, sold and traded with Ethereum (ETH) and other cryptocurrency coins. The buyer earns limited rights to display the artwork.
Shavonne Wong, 32, is an established NFT creator from Singapore. And though NFTs may still be in its infancy, she’s already been featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2020, Tatler Asia, and Vogue Singapore, to name a few.
In January this year, Idris Elba, a Hollywood actor who stars in The Suicide Squad, purchased three of her Love is Love collection pieces. It is described as “an art experiment in self-identification and expression of love”. In a Twitter exchange with Shavonne, he tweeted, “Thank you for your collection. I’m proud of it.” In response, Shavonne said, “I think that’s as great a validation as it gets!”
The fashion photographer turned 3D model creator’s latest collection: Love is Love, sold out an hour after its launch. It featured 500 unique NFT portraits of couples in 3D, sharing a romantic aspect of the human experience.
The collection was featured on the front page of NFT marketplace, OpenSea, and its floor price, defined as the lowest price available of the NFT, rose from 0.099 ETH (est. S$445.01) to 0.4ETH (est. S$1,798.05).
NFTs, however, was not a part of Shavonne’s plan. In the early stages of the pandemic, modelling photoshoots were restricted, and Shavonne’s work had come to a halt.
She asked herself, “How can I give myself a unique skill set that is not as common globally?” With her 10 years of photography expertise, she began exploring the realm of virtual models, which removed the limitations of the embedded restrictions. Her clientele of brands could then expand beyond Singapore.
While she spent months experimenting with her virtual models, her husband, a crypto investor himself, introduced her to the concept of digital art in the form of NFTs.
With the recency and unfamiliarity of digital art, she shared that it was “very confusing and difficult, and there wasn’t much information about it, but there was just enough for me to want to try it out.”
“It felt like a perfect match, on how I could do artworks and sell them as NFTs,” she said passionately.
Shavonne is inspired by everyday life and visual aesthetics. She shared that while creating her first NFT, ‘Lilium in Pearls,’ she wondered, “How can I make this different from my usual photography?”
“The way I lit, composited and posed her was the way I would in photography. So I thought, let’s play with the pearls to make it a bit more surreal,” she mentioned. “I can’t have floating pearls in real life, but I can have floating, moving pearls in 3D,” she added.
Shavonne also says that technology is enabling. “There’s a lot of thought about how I can make it different from my previous work by using technology to try out new things.”
She’s learnt to innovate with elements that cannot be implemented with a human model. Her most expensive artwork, which showed makeup passing from one face to another, ‘Kin II’, was sold for 7 ETH (est. S$31,630.61) in what she describes as “the most intense bid war, ever.”
“I was shocked. I was on Discord with my NFT community, NFT Asia. It was 2am, and I was hyperventilating a little bit… it was crazy! I expected a bidding war, but I didn’t expect it to go that high!” she said with a glow in her eyes as she recounted this memorable experience.
Her first NFT piece started with the 3D face of one of her virtual models. It gradually progressed to include clothing on their bodies. Seen in her most recent Lunar New Year NFTs, she has now mastered the technique of incorporating surrounding backgrounds and settings into an artwork.
As the transition took place through different collections over time, she shared that she views every NFT as a learning journey. “I try and learn something new, do something different from the previous one and then I take the skills and move onto the next pieces,” she said.
The landscape for non-traditional artists such as illustrators and graphic designers has changed, they can now be viewed as NFT artists. As for advice for those keen on creating 3D models and NFTs, she said, “Just do it. You learn the best on the go!”
With invitations to showcase her work at Art Dubai, the leading international art fair and the SouthEast Asian (S.E.A.) Focus exhibition, Shavonne believes in a virtual future where “NFTs will be what represents people in the virtual world.”
“It is here to stay.”