User:Frantopia99/sandbox

= Beeple = Mike Winkelmann (born 1981), known professionally as Beeple or Beeple Crap is a digital artist, graphic designer, and animator who is widely known for using various mediums in creating comical, phantasmagoric works that makes political, social commentary while using pop culture figures as references, including in his Everydays series.

Based in Charleston, San Francisco, Winkelmann initially got recognition by offering numerous VJ video clips through Creative Commons, which led him to work as a freelancer to create animations and graphics for music videos and live events; MTV, VMA and the Super Bowl. Winkelmann has created works for many celebrities such as Avicii, Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande and more. As well as brands namely, Apple, Louis Vuitton, Nike, amongst others.

Winkelmann’s work ranges from commercial work, album art, short films, VR(virtual reality) and AR(augmented reality) works. He practiced and developed his artistic skills by completing an artwork every day, prominently known as his Everydays series and posts it everyday on social media. This routine and action gained him a lot of recognition, where brands such as Louis Vuitton asked to use his works.

By auctioning some of his works from his "Everydays" series online in December 2020, it sold for a total of 3.5 million. Thereafter, Winkelmann assembled a collection of the first five thousand illustrations he completed for his Everydays, entitled, Everydays: The First 5000 Days. This collection will the first NFT(non-fungible tokens)-art based that will be auctioned at Christie's auction house on February 24 until March 11, 2021.

Early life and education
Winkelmann was born in 1971. He grew up in North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States with his father, an electric engineer and his mother who worked at a local senior centre. While growing up Winkelmann did not plan to be an artist. In 2003, Winkelmann graduated from Purdue University with a Computer Science degree to become a programmer. However, during college he spent most of his time working creatively with side projects such as digital shorts and as he described it, “little weird abstract digital art". After graduation Winkelmann worked as a web designer, yet in his spare time he continued working on his creative projects, or in Winkelmann's words, “Beeple stuff”.

Career
By continuing to work on the "Beeple stuff", he started his career as a digital artist when he freely provided many of his VJ loop video clips through Creative Commons. From this Winkelmann was able to quit his job due to the electronic music scene wanting to work with him. This led him to creating custom concert visuals and work independently full-time.

Since then, Winkelmann has created concert graphics and animation videos for music artists such as Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Childish Gambino, Nicki Minaj and for entertainment events such as the VMA’s. Winkelmann has also done commercial work for global brands, Nike, Apple, Space X and more. Furthermore, he provided visuals for the Super bowl, where his work was shown in two halftimes.

"Everydays"
The artwork series, entitled Everydays is a collection each artwork he has made every day since May 1, 2007. Inspired by artist, Tom Judd who did a drawing every day for a year, Winkelmann thought it was a beneficial way to sharpen his drawing skills. In the following years, he focused on one skill or medium per year. For instance in 2012 he practiced with Adobe Illustrator and in 2015 he practiced with “3-D modeling and animation program Cinema 4D” and photography in another.

Winkelmann is committed to the goal of creating and providing an illustration every day by midnight. In Forbes magazine, he claims, he's honest with creating pieces every day without working in advance, or has missed a day even with other work commitments or for personal days such as sick days or his children’s day of birth. The goal of creating an artwork every day has become a routine for the artist to embrace the process.

Style
By continuing his creative Everyday process Winkelmann’s style has diversified over the years. He is known for experimenting with different artistic techniques such as abstract, surrealism, satires and more. Fast Company magazine noted elements that are conveyed in Winkelmann’s art such as, “eeriness, drippy, use of neon, and glowing orbs of energy.” Furthermore, his style has been classified as a combination of the cinematic effect with science fiction.

Esquire magazine overall defined the art; “bizarre, hilarious, disturbing and grotesque.” From the many ways Winkelmann’s art is described, it is predominantly viewed as fantastical and phantasmagoric due to its surrealistic, dystopian, grandeur depiction with a twist of humour.

Themes
The common theme of Winkelmann’s works is acknowledged as otherworldly and creating atmospheres of the unknown. An article from the Verge also noted the main theme of Winkelmann’s 2020 pieces is the merging of political themes with a dystopian future, or specifically a “post-apocalyptic world”. This is due to his fascination with news and media, where he works with CNN and Fox News constantly playing in the background. Winkelmann is particularly inspired by the relationship between politics, technology and society. The artist mainly uses humour to explore and exaggerate the many societal trends such as pop culture and political figures in an idolizing way or as journalists describe it “disturbing”. An example of this is an animation of a large mechanical womanly-shaped figure with conjoined heads of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton walking in a parade of soldiers with breast milk pouring out. Many of Winkelmann’s works are commentaries on social and political events and wants viewers to question their role in society.

Reception
Winkelmann’s works, especially his Everydays series have gained popularity through social media, particularly on Instagram where he has 1.8 million followers. Fashion brand, Louis Vuitton’s art directors were captivated by Winkelmann’s pieces and asked to print some of them onto their Spring/Summer 2019 ready-to-wear collection. Winkelmann agreed and his digital artworks were featured on thirteen out of forty-five pieces at the Louvre. Since then, Winkelmann was inspired by the fashion show’s plan of releasing collections seasonally and is preparing to do the same with his artworks in the future.

Public Collections
In December 2020, Winkelmann sold his “2020 Everydays” collection in an online auction with Nifty Gateway and grossed 3.5 million. On February 25 to March 11, 2021, Winkelmann’s artworks will the first "NFT-based art. " NFT are non-fungible tokens that is another form of crypto-currency that is specific and unique to the art market place. Christie’s auction house will be the first to accept NFT for Winkelmann’s, Everydays: The First 5000 Days. The art piece is a digital collage of the first 5000 artworks from his Everydays series. The pieces are not in chronological order, however they are intertwined with one another in “recurring themes and colour schemes into an aesthetic whole”, and will also reveal the artist’s artistic progression.