The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has announced that the recent curated digital art NFT sale – Cartography of the Mind: A Curated NFT Sale – raised $1,569,960. Proceeds of the auction, presented by Christies in collaboration with Ryan Zurrer, founder of Dialectic and Vine Ventures, will benefit MAPS.
Cartography of the Mind was a recent curated digital art charity auction organized by Christie’s and Ryan Zurrer, founder of Vine Ventures. The auction generated nearly $1.6 million to support MAPS and the research of potentially life-saving psychedelic-assisted therapies!
MAPS extends warm gratitude to Christie’s, Ryan Zurrer, and the collection of diverse, world-renowned artists who graciously donated their art.
For those interested in seeing the art in person, it will be on display at Psychedelic Science 2023, the world’s largest psychedelic gathering happening June 17-25, 2023 in Denver.
At the time, this was the largest NFT charity auction held by Christie’s in 2022. With competitive bidding, it was 100% sold and 130% sold hammer over low estimate.
Psychedelic Healing by renowned visionary artist Alex Grey, is an artistic interpretation of the MAPS logo. It sold for nearly $19,000 and has been donated back to MAPS for the organization’s use and additional fundraising. Grey painted the original artwork to celebrate MAPS’ 35th anniversary in 2021.
The collection of artists who came together in support of MAPS is remarkable and representative of a diverse cross-section of the most definitive figures within the digital art movement. A number of artists shared stories of inspiration behind their artistic journeys having been informed by psychedelic experiences, which comes across collectively through the curation of artwork.
Beeple
Beeple, also known as Mike Winkelmann (b. 1981), is an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator from Charleston, SC, USA. He is known for using various mediums to create comical, phantasmagoric works that make political and social commentary, often referencing prominent figures of pop culture and politics. He is an early pioneer of the everyday movement in graphic design and currently ranks among the most expensive living artists. British auction house Christie’s has called him “A visionary digital artist at the forefront of NFTs.”
PILGRIMAGE sold for $252,000, surpassing its estimate of $150,000 – $250,000.
Refik Anadol
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is a media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he owns and operates Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB, the Studio’s research practice centered around discovering and developing trailblazing approaches to data narratives and artificial intelligence. Anadol is also a lecturer for UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts from which he obtained his second Master of Fine Arts.
Melting Memories – Early Engram – NFT EEG Data Sculpture sold for $100,800.
Mad Dog Jones
Michah Dowbak aka Mad Dog Jones is a multidisciplinary artist from Thunder Bay, Ontario, where he still resides. His works deftly interweave cyberpunk, dystopian imagery exploring themes of beauty, nature and technology. As a lover of the wilderness, which was ever present where he grew up, he brings a fresh thematic to the metropolitan aesthetic, done up in citrus and neon tones of technology somehow rendered as a space naturally human. Dowbak rose to fame in the world of crypto art with the recent success of his Crash + Burn series of NFT artworks, and he is now a headliner in the first major NFT art exhibition at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.
Silly Simon’s Psilocybin sold for $75,600.
IX Shells
Itzel Yard (IX Shells), who taught herself coding and processing languages while studying architectural technology in Toronto, picked up cryptography and creative coding design along the way. She returned to her hometown in Panama in 2019 when her education got too expensive and her student visa was about to expire. Currently, she’s enrolled in an online computer science program at the University of London. She also leads Creative Code Art, an online community she co-founded to support and facilitate networking among emerging generative artists.
Thalamic Pulse sold for $100,800.
Alex Grey
The art of Alex Grey represents realms of visionary consciousness, interweaving the anatomy of body and soul. In Grey’s paintings, the light of spirit illuminates the core of each being, depicting psychedelic mystical experiences with artwork that has touched and inspired millions. Alex has authored five books, including three monographs, had countless exhibitions and extensive reproductions and articles about his artwork. His speaking appearances, including a popular TED talk and his work with the rock band TOOL on three albums, including stage sets, animations, and Grammy award winning album art has made Alex Grey a renowned figure in contemporary art.
Psychedelic Healing sold for $18,900 and was donated back to MAPS for the organization’s use and additional fundraising.
Maxim Zhestkov
Maxim Zhestkov is an artist who examines the connections of physical and digital realities. Divided by a permeable membrane, these two worlds exist in a constant exchange and redefine one another. Zhestkov acts on their intersection: manifesting the continuity of exploration, he imagines new worlds and expands the understanding of the phenomena present in our universe.
Point of View sold for $52,920.
Sam Spratt
Sam Spratt is a New York-based artist, working out of his studio in Manhattan. He has spent the last decade learning how to use digital mediums to paint in a traditional manner. The artwork has found homes in games, films, tv, music, books, comics, magazines, theater, and most creative industries — however, the intention in technique is to let the space we actually operate in today feel as tactile as the space we move through physically. Growing up in Oregon, he was surrounded by nature — bringing that feeling through a screen is the process of removing the increments that appear to separate our physical and digital worlds. Bringing that feeling through pop-culture and into reality is the ultimate path.
VII. Wormfood sold for $252,000 – more than triple its low estimate.
WLOP
WLOP is the artist name of Wang Ling, a digital artist and freelance engineer from in China. He is the creator of Ghostblade, an independent comic series started in 2014. He currently resides in Hong Kong.
HaiQin sold for $21,420.
Maciej Kuciara
From a California-based studio, Maciej Kuciara works with a broad range of clients in the film, entertainment, clothing and tech industries. With almost two decades of professional experience, Maciej has contributed to award-winning visual development of major film and video games projects, major brands product release campaigns as well as art and design integration into cutting edge tech products.
Close Your Eyes sold for $16,380.
Sarah Meyohas
Sarah Meyohas is a conceptual artist whose practice considers the nature and capabilities of emerging technologies in contemporary society. Using the familiar emblems of biological life, Meyohas investigates the complex operations that increasingly govern our world: soaring birds, created using augmented-reality software, flock in unison with the frenetic variations of the stock market; rose petals, aggregately identical but individually unique, comprise the dataset for their AI-created equivalents; Bitchcoin, a cryptocurrency backed by physical artworks, questions the speculative value of cryptocurrency and the ineffable value of art. Meyohas creates an intelligible visual language to articulate the systems and technologies that increasingly influence our world. Meyohas’s work has been exhibited in New York at Red Bull Arts, 303 Gallery, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art and internationally at institutions including the Barbican Centre, London, the Jameel Arts Center, Dubai, and the Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai. She has been featured in *The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times*, *Vice*, and *Artforum*, and has appeared on CNBC, PBS, and CBC. Her film *Cloud of Petals* has been screened at various film festivals around the world, including the Slamdance Film Festival and the Locarno Film Festival. In 2017 she was named to the *Forbes 30 under 30* list. Meyohas holds dual degrees in Finance and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and in 2015 received her M.F.A. from Yale University.
Liquid Speculation #26 sold for $9,450.
Brendan Dawes
Brendan Dawes is a UK based artist using generative processes involving data, machine learning and algorithms, to create interactive installations, electronic objects, online experiences, data visualisations, motion graphics and imagery for screen and print. Time and space are often consistent themes within his work. A Lumen Prize Alumni, his work has featured in many exhibitions across the world including Big Bang Data in thirteen cities, three MoMA shows in New York together with his Cinema Redux work becoming part of the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2008. His recent Art of Cybersecurity work is featured in Art Futura 2020.
and then, clarity sold for $22,680
Ash Thorp
Ash Thorp is a multidisciplinary artist whose skills encompass many mediums from motion graphics, VFX, concept/digital art, photography, illustration and animation to directing. Beyond his extensive CV of commissioned work, Thorp’s short films include Epoch, Edifice, Shared Memories, and Evinetta, each of which has allowed him to showcase an uninhibited creative process and vision that have helped further propel his notoriety and career.
Merch-Spectrum 001 sold for $10,710.
Archan Nair
Archan Nair is a visual artist, Illustrator and digital artist, specializing in mixed media, illustration, and digital art based out of Berlin, Germany. Archan’s visual expressions are part of a journey which is really influenced by the mysteries of our existence and how every action, emotion, and our interconnectedness in a universal scale sets of a chain of reactions which we experience from the micro to the macro scale. Formerly a fashion major and entrepreneur, Archan started painting in 2006 at the age of 24 and made the shift as an independent artist in 2007. Since then Archan has embarked on an exhilarating and inspirational journey, collaborating with various companies and individuals such as: Nike, RedBull, Canon, Infiniti, Sony Netflix, Samsung, Electric Forest, GQ among many others. Archan has achieved recognition from music artists like Kanye West along with collaborations with Chris Brown, Lindsay Lohan, Justine Bateman and has been featured in various publications like Vice, RollingStone, Vogue, GQ.
Precipice sold for $22,680.
Dangiuz
Dangiuz, pseudonym of Leopoldo D’Angelo (born 11 July 1995 in Turin, Italy), is an Italian Visual Artist, Art Director and Graphic Designer specializing in sci-fi themes. His art is produced with 3D computer graphics software and depicts dystopian scenarios with references to Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, two of his primary sources of creative inspiration. In February 2021, his piece “Grand Challenge” was one of the first digital artworks sold as an NFT by an Italian digital artist. His work has been featured in art networks, TV channels, and magazines including Arte, Wallpaper, NVIDIA Studio Standouts, Juxtapoz Magazine, Sohu, and Digital Production, and showcased in museums and galleries worldwide.
Enchanter sold for $44,100.
Jake Fried
Jake Fried is an artist, experimental animator, and professor in Boston. He began his career as a painter, transitioning to animation as he became fascinated by the way images evolved over time. Using ink and white-out, sometimes adding collage and even coffee, Jake generates hallucinatory vistas, modifying and shooting the images over and over to create mind-bending animations that evolve at a frenzied pace. His animations have been shown internationally, including at the Tate Modern and the Sundance Film Festival.
Baby Eyes sold for $63,000.
Andrés Reisinger
Andrés Reisinger (b.1990) is one of the most sought-after digital artists of the 21C. Originally from Argentina, he now creates carefully curated projects in his studio in Barcelona. His instantly-recognisable dream-like imagery have drawn interest from a plethora of multi-million-dollar collectors, brands and international art galleries alike. He is named as one of “Forbes 30 Under 30” artists creating and designing the future of the arts and is the winner of the “Young Guns” Art Directors Club New York City. His market has grown from strength to strength, with recent works fetching up to half a million dollars auction at Christie’s NYC Evening Sale (Arcadia, $525,000, Christie’s, November 2021).
A Space in Time sold for $32,760.
Six N. Five
Six N. Five is the studio of Ezequiel Pini’s work, an award-winning Argentinian designer and digital artist based in Barcelona. Since 2014, Ezequiel has specialized in creating digital and real worlds experiences with a clean and modern aesthetic. In addition to having worked with the most recognized brands and creators, their trajectory and artistic works have been pioneers in their field. From the beginning, his main goal was to legitimize CGI as a new medium of artistic expression. Nowadays we could say that this is already happening. Their refined imagination, poetic compositions, edgy minds, and sleek skills make Six N. Five stand out in its uniqueness and purity of results.
Curiosity sold for $63,000.
Forgotten Runes Wizard Cult
Forgotten Runes Wizard’s Cult is a decentralized approach to world-building. Worlds like Middle Earth, the Star Wars Galaxy, and Westeros were built by singular, lone creators. Our Runiverse, however, is built by thousands of creators in our community.
Quantum Ouroboros sold for $138,600.
David Choe
Fist Hugger sold for $32,760.
Toomuchlag
Dream Machine sold for $30,240.
Victor Mosquera
Currents sold for $17,640.
Tom Sachs
Relentlessness (Perfect Atari Branded Rocket) sold for $30,240.
Joshua Davis
the V01D / 004-001 sold for $23,940.
Fvckrender
STIMULATED// sold for $20,160.
Casey Reas
Process Compendium (X-6) sold for $23,940.
Dustin Yellin
Psychoprogeny – Mother Tree sold for $63,000.
Justin Aversano
Ten of Swords sold for $30,240.
