Black Art Matters in Web3

It took years for multi-talented artist Nubianizm – a homage to the Nubian people and singer Erykah Badu's debut album Baduizm – to improve her pencil drawing skills and become a sensation on Twitter and Instagram with hyper-realistic portraits so meticulous they resemble photographs. In 2018, her portrait of actress Viola Davis caused a buzz online in seconds after taking four months to complete in real life.

Fans of her work now reach out to her to commission everything from miniature A4 pencil portraits to 24x30-inch masterpieces. In 2022, motivated by her peers and the popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), she entered the world of Web3. The artist, known as Rica in real life, started building an online community of Black art enthusiasts and first-time buyers who enjoy and invest in her work.

‘An African-American developer and another artist taught me everything I know about NFTs, decentralisation, the blockchain and Ethereum,’ Nubianizm told LS:N Global. ‘Back in 2020 already, people would see my artwork and tell me: ‘Oh my god, you’ll be so good in NFTs.’ But it's not that simple.’

I think Web3 is such a bubble that the rest of the world does not have any idea what goes on within it

After joining her mentors’ Discord server and learning from them and their community, she worked on her Web3 project for three months before officially starting minting (creating a unique token on the blockchain) and selling NFTs.

But not all of her visuals made in real life are digitalised. She says: 'I don’t make everything NFTs because they are just one medium to sell my artwork. While I have my private commissions with customers, if I do want to work on other things like trying new tools, this is where NFTs are perfect for me because then I can repurpose those pieces.’

A community-driven platform

Web3 is home to countless communities where users share similar interests and engage with one another. ‘It’s such a bubble that the rest of the world does not know what goes on because people just tend to relate Web3 to NFTs, but it’s more than that,’ explains the artist. ‘There is the metaverse, DeFi and other parts of crypto. It’s its own eco-system.’

In The Betterverse, we looked at how virtual realms, similar to Nubianizm's online art community, could be used for good. 'I've worked on projects supporting artists but also mindfulness and mental health,' says Rica. 'Other Black initiatives on Web3 include an upcoming free HBCU [historically Black college and university] for under-represented and marginalised people who want to get into web development or digital art.’ Umba Daima, a creative NFT Studio, is also building a multi-cultural collaborative Web3 community called Black NFT Art, while digital art gallery One/Off is developing a Black arts and culture eco-system on the blockchain.

Authenticating Black art permanently

Some of Nubianizm’s recent work on Web3 includes her Black Renaissance series, for which she explored 17th- and 18th-century literature and the reclamation of Renaissance art from a Black perspective. A predominantly white and elitist space, the art scene has always found inspiration in the African continent and Afro-descendants worldwide, from Picasso adding ‘African’ masks to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon to countless Western museums owning stolen priceless African artefacts. As calls for decolonisation, reparation and sending back art to its country of origin gain traction, not much is said about Black digital art.

Anyone could buy Nubianizm’s hyper-realistic Black portrait NFTs and profit by reselling them, but the blockchain makes it nearly impossible to appropriate it and wipe Rica’s input from history. ‘NFTs are literally non-fungible tokens, meaning that they are a unique code on the blockchain,’ she says. ‘As long as there’s proof that you are the original artist, once you put that artwork on the blockchain, it can be sold 100 times. The person who put it online first will be on the blockchain for ever.’

Not only can Web3 finally protect women artists and Black artists from erasure, but it can also generate additional revenues for them after the first sale via royalties. ‘In the past, artists would undersell their work while the person who bought it could sell for 10 times more later. The original artist has never been able to get a penny from that. Now that my work is minted on the blockchain, it’s forever archived. Ten years from now, hopefully, if NFTs are still here, someone could resell my work, and they will know it’s genuinely from me.’

Since every transaction on the blockchain is public and NFTs are authenticated, Nubianizm can check who is buying, owning and reselling her art while collecting royalties for each sale transaction.

Some people feel safer in Web3 because even though you don’t reveal your identity, you can still have a voice

Protecting Black aesthetics from digital colonisation

While the astounding abilities of ChatGPT raise questions about the future of human writers, generative artificial intelligence (AI) like Dall-E and MidJourney will affect the world of digital art and NFTs massively, as anyone with suitable prompts could turn into an artist overnight.

Some have used the technology to generate inclusive art such as 'fat, Black sci-fi and fantasy characters' promoting under-represented communities. Levi's is even taking it further after announcing plans to create diverse models of all sizes and ethnicities via AI to make their online store more inclusive. Nubianizm isn’t particularly afraid of AI, especially given using the technology to create good art remains a challenge. She says: ‘Web3 right now is AI-savvy, AI-crazy and AI-obsessed. I have played around with some of the software; the only con I have about it is that it’s not well legislated. There are no barriers or boundaries.’

She adds: ‘I have a tremendous respect for traditional art because I’m from that world, I have seen the work and the labour that goes into some art pieces that can take months. In my experience, that technology is still quite flawed. I’m sure it will improve, but an obvious difference exists between a real oil painting and an AI-generated oil painting. You cannot disregard traditional artists and say: ‘Well, AI is here. We can do this in a split second now.’’

Web3 right now is AI-savvy, AI-crazy and AI-obsessed