Cypherpunk artist Johnny Dollar photo by @stellabelle

One of the coolest parts of participating in the Decentralized Art Show in SXSW was meeting other artists who are doing bona fide crypto art.

Johnny Dollar stands out as one of the OG’s of crypto art and I had the pleasure of hearing about his ‘Show Me Your Cookies’ painting that had encryption and private keys embedded in the art. He challenged someone to find out what was encrypted his painting, but I am not sure anyone actually figured it out. Most, I think were too busy getting drinks and socializing.

The video shows Johnny Dollar explaining the concept behind “Show Me Your Cookies” and assorted other sneak peeks into the opening night of the Decentralized Art Show. Tbh, I was quite distracted and otherwise not exactly in work mode when I filmed these clips! I was enjoying myself too much to produce a high quality video. I think the next time I participate in an event, I will be able to better focus on quality and less on imbibing various and interesting ingredients.

Here’s the video:

Most of the art at the show wasn’t really bona fide crypto art, as I believe the art form is still being defined and emerging. Most of it was traditional art, but I found some interesting pieces by unknown artists like Tara Aviles, and I learned that this was her first public art show.

Here's artist Tara and her boyfriend:

Another artists who was really fun to meet was Ismael Cavazos:

He did some interesting Bitcoin QR code art and his story about why he started doing this is interesting. I liked talking with all these fascinating artists about their new crypto art innovations and it’s safe to say that the genre is just getting started.

The art that I brought to the show was not technically crypto art, as no private keys nor encryption were contained within the works. The artists who submitted their work were: @drawingly, @juliakponsford, @elohprojects, @yusaymon, @stellabelle, @rubenalexander @alexandravart and one anonymous artist.

Each piece of art that was submitted, and framed by me contained a QR code so that purchasers could just send the artists crypto directly. This was the first show that Slothicorn has participated in and the best thing to come of it was meeting artists like Johnny Dollar who is tentatively planning a real cypherpunk art party in the future. He was by far the most fascinating crypto OG i’d ever met and I learned a ton from him. Read one of his articles to find out more about him: https://medium.com/@cypherpunk/on-the-quest-for-privacy-f7d778234fa7

Here's a bunch of photos of the opening night at the Santa Cruz Gallery:

I got too drunk at the party to properly document all the artists names for the works above. There is always a next time. Special thanks to Lauren and @itsmee.bosslady who made this all happen!

Cheers,
Slothicorn