Background
Grant Yun is a contemporary artist hailing from Milwaukee, WI. As a child, he was surrounded by artistic influences, as both his parents and aunt were professional painters and sculptors. This early exposure to art sparked his own interest, and Yun began honing his skills in drawing and painting at a young age.
In recent years, Yun has gained recognition as a painter and digital artist, both in the United States and in the online art community. His digital illustrations often showcase a realism rooted in reality, yet he also experiments with abstract techniques to express ideas.
Yun’s work has been featured in Sotheby’s, PROOF Collective’s Grails Collection, Avant Arte, The Memes by 6529, and more.
Style
Instead of relying on brushes or the pen tool, Yun utilizes a trackpad on his Macbook Pro running Adobe Illustrator. This allows him to build compositions piece by piece, by selecting individual shapes and adjusting their colors and alignment until they form a complete image. Yun’s artwork is essentially a collection of vector shapes arranged in an orderly fashion, much like the pieces of a puzzle, to create a convincing picture.
Neo Precisionism
Yun uses a unique style in his work that he calls “Neo-Precisionism”. This style explores concepts from philosophical and religious theories of the 1900s, while also making a lasting impact on the future of digital art in the Web3 era.
1/1s:
Citrus
Citrus is a 1/1 art piece created on January 3, 2023 and sold on Art of This Millennium to “confusedcollector” for 69.42 ETH. The artwork depicts oranges and was Yun’s first piece of 2023.
1/1s listed on SuperRare:
- Twilight in the Tetons
- Marble Quarry
- Lunch With Lilly
- gn
- Gas Station
- Childhood Wonder
- Midtown
- A Night in Salinas
- Sleepy Beagle
- Salt Ponds
- Pool
- Windy Hill Hoop Dreams
- Junction
- By the Ocean.
- Cow
- Truckstop Diner
- Life In Japan
- Marin Headlands
- Empty Space and Tomato Soup
- Starry Night Over Sausalito
- A Day In New England
- The Alien
- Off The Ranch
- Space In Primary
- A Calm Afternoon
- For Lease
- A Dive Into Space
- Space in the Mid-Century
- A Flight Over Neptune
- A Quiet Evening
- A Night Out In San Francisco
- Classic American
- Getting Ready For Bead
- Somewhere in San Francisco
- Golden Gate City, 2300
- Golf
- Seoul In The Morning
- Fresh Produce
- An Afternoon in Gilroy
- Bedtime
- Salinas Valley
- Painting American Gothic
- Empty Roads
- Tequila Sunrise
- Driving Through The Night
- Eclipse
- Starchild Station
- Sulfur Mining
- Emergency In Outer Space
- Space Ranger
- American Grid
- Nighttime On The Farm
- A Rainy Night In Tokyo
- Calm Countryside
- The Modern Jumble
- Midwest
- Sunday Sermon
- Overpass
- One Last Sermon
- Rolling Hills
- 87bwGBY.o8yw3
- Orange Green
- Sunrise City Blues
- Drunk On The Train
- The Fish Of Ether
- Tokyo! The Midnight Run
- Nighttime In The Neighborhood
- Farmland
- Last Train Home
- Monolith
- Metro City Strut
1/1s listed on Opensea:
- In Town
- Polar Bear In A Snowstorm
- Special Delivery
- Terminal
- An Afternoon With Rockets
Early Works on Opensea:
“Early Works" is a series of compositions created at the very beginning of Yun's digital art career (2016-2017). Created using Microsoft PowerPoint, each uses the shapes tool to manipulate shapes to create silhouettes of objects.
- Flexin’
- Ocean View
- S&I Fencing
- Seats
- The Pill 1
- The Pill 2
- Casa Roja
Foundations of Study
Eight unique hand-drawn compositions used specifically to create Primera. A series with years in the making, only eight out of thousands of hand-drawn illustrations have been minted.
- Elikis
- Falling Feather
- Jungle
- Lunging Blade
- Peacock Harris
- Sentientism
- Spiraling out of Reality
- Contraindication
Flight Over Pepeville
A 1/1 piece listed on dense.tungsten.wtf that sold for 23.69 ETH on April 4 2022. The description reads, “The crew takes a flight over Pepeville, an industrial town known for its tungsten manufacturing and density”.
Editions:
En Route:
A 20-piece collaborative art project between Avant Arte and Grant Yun
Store:
A 40-piece collaborative art project between Proof_XYZ and Grant Yun
Life In Japan:
This edition was minted on Nifty Gateway on May 8 2022. There are 374 pieces in the collection and the breakdown is as follows:
329 - School and Apartments
25 - Midnight Snack Run
10 - Biking Home
10 - The Coast
Cozy Homes Collection:
A 10-piece collection inspired by Yun’s time exploring New England. The collection minted on September 4 2021 and contains five Daytime Homes and five Nighttime Homes.
Cypress:
A piece featured in the Noble Gallery collection. The Noble Gallery is described on Opensea as being “Small batch editions by iconic crypto artists crafting the digital renaissance”. The piece depicts several trees, a deer, and an ocean background.
Meme Factory:
Part of the collection “The Memes by 6529” and contains 1420 editions. The Memes Collection is an open edition that is meant to have large and inexpensive edition sizes to spread the word and avoid gas wars. The piece depicts a factory with the phrase “Seize the Memes of Production!”
Decal:
A 100-piece collection created in August 2022. According to Opensea, the collection is “An interpretation of the Decal by Grant Yun. A symbol of permissionless activity. Series Two”.
Generative
Primera
Primera is a groundbreaking project led by Andrew Mitchell and Grant Yun, created entirely using p5.js. With a limited edition of 400 pieces, Primera represents years of research and experimentation on the fundamentals of early 20th century art, infused with the capabilities of 21st century blockchain technology.
Additionally, Primera has been released under the Creative Commons (CC0) license, meaning that the team has waived all copyright restrictions on the project. This allows anyone to use Primera for any purpose, including commercial use. The goal of this project is to showcase the beauty of generative code and the potential of blockchain art, while also promoting the importance of sharing art freely.
BTC NFTs
Yun has three Bitcoin NFT collections listed on pepe.wtf. All three depict the “Pepe” meme. These include:
Pepeserum: 16-piece collection, created in October 2021
Fakalife: 100-piece collection, created in March 2022
Calmpepe: 100-piece collection, created in June 2022
Notable Collections
Midwest Collection
According to Yun, his Midwest collection is his most well-received and widely-liked. When asked about his favorite piece, he states that he doesn’t have a specific one, but the “Midwest” piece holds a special place in his heart. It was the first series in the style that he has adopted, and he believes that if it wasn’t for that piece, he might not have the successful career he has today.
Special Delivery
Special Delivery was minted on September 27 2022 and was exhibited at the Hong KongDigital Art Fair XPERIENCE in October and November of 2022. The piece is from the series “Life in Japan” and depicts a delivery truck driving through the Japanese countryside.
Cow
Yun’s sale of “Cow” sparked a debate about the worth and practicality of fine art NFTs. Some argued that the piece was too simple to be worth 22 ETH (approximately $72,000), while others saw the potential of Yun’s creation to become a leading example of CC0 licensed art in the NFT industry. Yun currently has the Cow as his avatar on Twitter.
