ArtBlocks

Generative art James Merrill, known for his Wimmelbilder-style landscapes that blend the mechanical precision of code with the warmth of hand-drawn illustrations, has pushed the limits of on-chain art with the latest version of his acclaimed project Busy, which debuts as part of the Art Blocks Curated series.
Inspired by the intricate systems of city life, Busy draws out a sprawling simulated city using a pen plotter, a machine that can draw each piece line by line in incredible detail.
Ahead of Art Blocks Curated’s Busy exhibition and the release of Busiest , we caught up with Merrill to talk pen drawing, the technological breakthroughs that made Busy possible, and why the concept of “timelessness” is at the core of his practice.

Artist Jimmy Griffith, also known as Remnynt, has a natural talent for creating exquisite artworks.
He was diagnosed with nystagmus in infancy, a condition that causes involuntary eye movement. He says he was drawn to hands-on art activities with intricate mazes and maps, where he could focus intently and pay close attention to visual tasks.
By the age of four, he began drawing mazes and maps for games he created for himself. By high school, he started programming games for friends using a TI-83 calculator.
Nowadays, Remnynt states that software is his artistic medium. His first encounter with generative art was in 2008 when he studied how computer graphics could recreate in real-time in the gaming world using mathematical algorithms and fractal geometry.

When she began her career, Brazilian-born artist Monica Rizzolli, now residing in Portugal, did not know she would become a renowned NFT generative artist; she only knew she wanted to create art.
More specifically, she knew she wanted to build upon the inspiration and creativity she derived from her grandfather's own creations. Although he was a printer (not a generative artist), she still learned from his work ethic and dedication to art.
Thus, Rizzolli studied fine arts, then learned programming. She always paid attention to nature around her, combining these three perspectives and skills to form Monica's unique artistic style—a painterly, serene, and dance-like natural style, which swept through the NFT world with her first Art Blocks series 'Fragments of an Infinite Field' launched in 2021.

London-based artist Anthony Heideman, better known as MountVitruvius or “MV,” has carved out a unique space in the field of generative art by incorporating personal memories and literary inspiration into his algorithmic creations.
His 999-piece “Mind the Gap” series is inspired by childhood games and exploration, and is released for the first time on generative art platform gm. Studio, while his “Render’s Game” series explores the iterative nature of cumulative achievement, paying homage to MV’s artistic journey and Orson Scott Card’s 1985 science fiction novel “Ender’s Game.”

Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, our recap of the biggest NFT and web3 news from the week.
Pixels goes all out for Halloween
The popular social open-world farming game Pixels has launched a Halloween event, giving players spooky new challenges, collectibles, and mini-games to play throughout October.
One game, “Dennis the Dentist’s Haunted Harvest,” gives players the chance to collect spooky “teeth” prizes by smashing different colored skulls for digital points, which can be redeemed for materials to craft jack-o’-lanterns, which unlock limited-edition costumes.

Colombian-American artist Jimena Buena Vida infuses catharsis into each piece she creates. As a self-taught digital artist, trained engineer, and mother of two, she merges her technical knowledge with strong emotional intelligence to create abstract generative art, inviting collectors to embrace healing and personal transformation.
Buena Vida was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and now resides in the U.S. Her mission is to inspire underrepresented artists to believe in their creative vision. Her series has sold out, including the generative art series 'Epiphanies' that deeply explores fundamental aspects of existence and the layered interpretations of identity, and her animated piece 'Where We Come From' gained attention in the 23rd Latin Grammy Awards® NFT series.

Rob Dixon, better known as Radix, transforms code into generative art that is both mind-bending and beautiful. Based in Marin County, California, Radix has been experimenting at the intersection of art, code, and video game design for decades.
His work can be found everywhere from Marfa to Paris, and even in the Metaverse, where he co-created the popular Decentraland game WonderZone.
Radix’s first Art Blocks work, “Inspirals,” draws viewers into a hypnotic cycle of movement and meditative concentration, with intricate patterns that demand close inspection, drawing you into the endless possibilities of geometry.

Imagine owning a hoodie that’s as unique as your fingerprint. Welcome to the world of mmERCH, a new business that offers custom, one-of-a-kind apparel that can be traced through blockchain technology.
Each mmERCH product begins as a piece of generative art that is then minted into an NFT that can be redeemed for physical apparel, an innovative approach conceived by mmERCH founder and CEO Colby Mugrabi that allows for the mass production of custom apparel, a feat Mugrabi says has never been done before.
By embedding a near-field communication (NFC) chip in each hoodie, mmERCH turns clothing into a “wearable wallet” that records the provenance and experiences associated with each item. This novel approach brings a new level of engagement to collectors and fashion enthusiasts who want to record an item’s famous owner or a significant event.

Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, our recap of the biggest NFT and web3 news from the week.
New York Poetry Society Hosts Generative Poetry Workshop with Ana Maria Caballero
Artist and digital poetry champion Ana Maria Caballero is hosting a virtual workshop titled “Poetry Beyond the Page,” hosted in conjunction with the Poetry Society of New York, inviting poets to create work that goes beyond paper and combines poetry with digital media.
Caballero, who co-founded theVERSEverse with AI poet Sasha Stiles and conceptual crypto writer and artist Kalen Iwamoto, presented her poem “Cord” at Sotheby’s Bitcoin Ordinals inscription online auction titled Natively Digital.

For decades, art created with algorithms and code has been marginalized, recognized only by academia and the digital art community, but overlooked by the traditional art world.
With the rise of blockchain-based collectibles, this situation has changed. Blockchain collectibles provide artists working in this style known as 'generative art' a reliable way to prove authenticity, establish provenance, and sell their work directly to collectors.
Today, well-known institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Pompidou Center in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York are exhibiting works by generative artists, and this expansion coincides with the rise of platforms like Art Blocks.

Born in Tokyo in 1990, Emi Kusano began her artistic journey as a street photographer on the streets of Harajuku as a teenager, leading to an exhibition at the V&A Museum.
A multidisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of retrofuturism and modern technological acceleration, her unique AI art has graced the cover of WWD Japan and been featured at auctions at Christie’s and Gucci.​
Her work has gained international recognition and has been exhibited at venues such as the Saatchi Gallery and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and has been collected in more than a dozen countries around the world.

Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, our recap of the biggest NFT and web3 news from the week.
Rafaël Rozendaal exhibition now at MOMA
Dutch-Brazilian artist Rafaël Rozendaal’s latest exhibition is now on view at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, “Light” is an immersive exhibition that opens on November 16 and runs until spring 2025 on the Modern Card digital wall.
The installation showcases a series of Rozendaal’s algorithm-driven animations, each displayed for two to three minutes on a large, high-resolution screen. His works begin as sketches on paper and are then converted into compact code, generating real-time animations that appear to merge with the physical world.

Jen Stark is comfortable on both the East and West Coasts of the United States and excels in various artistic mediums; just take a look at her Instagram page which supports this theory, as it is as vibrant, colorful, and energetic as her artworks and NFT collection - if you look closely, you'll find mathematical patterns throughout.
This Miami native, now based in Los Angeles, initially began her career with a paintbrush in hand, later turning various things like wood, metal, and NFTs into reality, bringing her artistic vision to life.

Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, let's recap the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.
Coinbase integrates cryptocurrency with Apple Pay
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that it will now allow users to purchase cryptocurrencies via third-party applications using Apple Pay.
This new integration is part of Coinbase Onramp, following Coinbase's ongoing efforts to make it easier for mainstream users to access cryptocurrencies by providing app makers a way to allow customers to convert fiat currency to cryptocurrency with minimal hassle.

Launched in the wake of the excitement of 2020’s DeFi Summer and before the 2021 NFT craze, Art Blocks was a platform for creating generative computer art and minting it as NFTs, which quickly became popular with collectors seeking new digital art and artists looking to distribute their work on the Ethereum blockchain.
Art Blocks was founded by NFT pioneer artist Erick Calderon (aka Snowfro) in November 2020. Calderon created Chromie Squiggles as a proof of concept for his vision of creating generative art. The Art Blocks logo is even based on the Squiggles design. Within six months, the platform was already hiring a full-time team.

Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, let's review the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.
Imogen Heap collaborates with AI music platform Jen
Grammy-winning innovator Imogen Heap collaborates with Jen, an AI music platform focused on fan-created music that complies with copyright.
Heap is a pioneer of the 'Folk Electronic' genre, known for popular songs like (Hide and Seek), he contributed songs to Jen, an ethically trained AI tool that enables users to create their own unique works using filters and prompts.

Anonymous artist XCOPY has been creating glitch art NFTs for years — so long that even his earliest collectibles have become something of a legend.
Fans of his work often tell stories about how his first NFTs disappeared because early art platforms failed to survive like him, stories that pay tribute to XCOPY’s deep connection to NFT history.
For those unfamiliar with XCOPY, there is a lot to know about the NFTs that have made him one of the best-selling artists in the industry, however, there is very little information about the man himself, the only publicly available information being that XCOPY has a connection to London.

In the early 21st century, Texas artist DeltaSauce grew up as a child who could spend hours in front of magazine shelves, flipping through glossy magazines filled with interior design layouts and bold cover art, finding unexpected inspiration in curated chaos.
DeltaSauce's father was a carpenter who built practical beauty from scratch. Therefore, he learned to view design as art and storytelling, a theme that now runs through his entire career.
At the 2024 Marfa art district weekend, DeltaSauce showcased his first installation artwork, a set of vintage CRT displays, which once were the focal point of living rooms in the 1990s. The artist repurposed these still-powered items as canvases for his AI works.

Few artists can deal with generative code for over 25 years, but Harvey Rayner is one of those people. As a veteran of the generative art world, Rayner's work is both bold and ethereal.
His work features blocky geometric shapes and striking contrasts, balanced with soft pastel gem tones. This combination makes his works feel light yet powerful, somewhat like a film negative caught between light and shadow.
Rayner's 'Fontana' series was first generated on Art Blocks in 2022. It captures the flowing motion of fountains abstractly using generative code and represents it with static elements. Each output is generated from a carefully curated color palette.

RalenArc is a multidisciplinary artist from the United States who has spent over 16 years honing her craft across various mediums, from murals to digital art. Her works blend the textures and organic shapes of nature, now precisely translated into code, making her pieces both captivating and profound.
Starting with traditional forms such as canvas and clay, RalenArc turned to generative art and quickly found her style. This transition allowed her to create complex designs that reflect her interest in the intersection of technology and nature.
She has published her works on platforms such as Sotheby's, Feral File, and ArtBlocks. Her artwork has been exhibited at renowned exhibitions during Art Basel Miami and the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, and showcased in galleries in Singapore, Amsterdam, Venice, Berlin, New York, London, and more.