Part of my thesis for the Executive Master in Art Market Studies 2023-25 at the University of Zurich.

Osinachi is a self-taught digital artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. Born in 1991, he grew up in Aba, where before developing an interest in visual art, he had a passion for writing and literature. [1] He wrote poems, plays, short fiction stories, and essays, and was an active member of the writing community of the University of Nigeria. In one of his essays, A Man and his Breasts, Osinachi goes over his struggles of growing up with gynecomastia, which deeply affected his perception of masculinity, a theme that he explored in depth later on in his art. [2]

In parallel to being a passionate writer, Osinachi was involved with digital art from very early in his life. In 2005, he discovered the drawing tools in Microsoft Word at a cyber cafe that he frequented to type his scripts. “I started exploring [the drawing tools] and took a deep interest in it. Whenever I saw a computer or laptop, I would head straight to Microsoft Word and start trying to create things.” [3] Eventually his passion for visual art will overtake that of writing, as it becomes easier for him to express himself through art. “I like giving my work room to evolve and that's not very easy for me in writing. I don't have the stamina to do a lot of writing, honestly." [3] He graduated from the university in 2014 and shortly after decided to pursue a career as an artist.

In 2018, he became the first-ever Nigerian artist to showcase artworks at the Ethereal Summit, a conference in New York that seeked to bridge the gap between technology and art through blockchain. Shortly afterwards he was shortlisted for the Bridgeman Studio Award 2019. In January 2019, he published A Boy Can Be Anything, his first work on SuperRare. His subsequent works on the platform are going to catapult his career.

2020 is a transformative year for the artist in terms of recognition and even more importantly his own style. While he continues to tackle topics of masculinity, LGTBQ rights, family life, and pop culture in Africa, he evolves the faux-naïf style that he utilized to add texture to his characters and starts using the signature dark gray color in bodies without eyes that accompanies his works to this day. At the same time, he starts using the GIF format in many of his works to animate his characters.

In March 2020 he had his first ever solo show named Existence as Protest at Kate Vass Galerie in Zurich. Jason Bailey, an early supporter of crypto art and Osinachi, writes in the foreword of the show: “Osinachi is a brilliant protest artist. Rather than depict dramatic scenes of struggle and conflict as is often typical with protest art, his weapon of choice is to highlight normalcy and positivity. His government has some of the most vicious anti-LGTBQ laws in the world, yet he chooses to celebrate this community in the face of these laws by showing its members happily living their lives as everyday human beings. By avoiding negativity and drama and simply presenting positive images of people just trying to live their lives, Osinachi completely defangs anti-LGBTQ propaganda. Rather than pour gas on a fire, he extinguishes it all together.” [4]

Beyond mentioning his grandmother when asked about his influences, Osinachi credits Devan Shimoyama, Tschabalala Self, and Njideka Akunyili-Crosby. He relates to Njideka’s art expressing what it was like to be raised as an Igbo child in an Igbo home. He appreciates Tschabalala for exaggerating the female figure and celebrating women, and Shimoyama for celebrating the male body. [5] Continuing his gradual exposure to the art world, Osinachi's Resignation and A Portrait of the Artist at 29 were exhibited in Art Basel 2021 at Galerie Nagel Draxler's Crypto Kiosk.

2021 also marked the peak of the crypto and NFT markets, with some of Osinachi's works trading above $100,000 in both primary and secondary markets. His highest selling work to date is Take The Stares, which Osinachi originally sold in January 2020 for just over $300, then was resold in August 2021 for $96,000, only to be flipped two months later for $180,000. [6] The final purchaser was the infamous hedge fund 3AC, which ironically went bankrupt a few months later, an event that exacerbated the crypto market crash of 2022. [7] As part of 3AC's liquidation proceedings, Take The Stares was auctioned at Sotheby's in January 2024 for $20,320, marking Osinachi's first appearance at the prestigious auction house. [8]

Before Sotheby’s, Osinachi had already established his presence in the major auction houses by auctioning works in the primary market at Christie’s. In October 2021 he auctioned Different Shades of Water at Christie’s London, a series of five works inspired by David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972. This sale made him the first African artist to sell NFTs at Christie’s. [9] All five works sold for a total of £155,000. He would return to sell at Christie’s again two years later.

2022 proved to be a challenging year for the entire crypto industry, with artists in the NFT market feeling the impact as well. However, this was also the year when museums began seriously acquiring works from these artists for their permanent collections. In December 2022, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum acquired 16 artworks from NFT artists, establishing the first major collection of blockchain artists at an art museum in the United States. [10] One of the works acquired was Osinachi’s +rave-sing (traversing), which was also sold as an NFT edition of four to the public.

Osinachi's museum discourse continued into 2023 when he enrolled in an art residency at the Toledo Museum of Art, marking the first time in the institution's history that a digital artist was selected as a resident. According to Adam Levine, the museum's director: “We had been thinking about how we could fully engage with artists who create digitally, bringing artists into our community, and going into theirs. Our goal was to treat digital art as art, and to give them the opportunity to explore their own practice and really build on this notion of community, which is as important for us here as it is in the Web3 space.” [11] One of the notable outcomes of this residency was Abitt: The Second Renaissance is Coming, a work by Osinachi with imagery deeply rooted in Toledo's history and contemporary times. The piece was auctioned at Christie's for $16,864, with the Toledo Museum of Art acquiring the artist's proof.

Shooting: The Fire, another artwork created by Osinachi during his Toledo residency that illustrates how retaliatory responses perpetuate rather than resolve conflict, was acquired by The Museum of Art + Light in Manhattan, Kansas in March 2025. [12] Around the same time, Tennis Player, a self-portrait by the artist created in 2020, will be sold for more than $50,000 in the secondary market, [13] signifying how sought-after Osinachi's early GIF works have become.

Osinachi's journey from creating digital art on Microsoft Word in Nigerian cyber cafes to institutional recognition around the world exemplifies the art world's gradual but definitive institutionalization of digital and NFT art. He has established a presence in auction houses, art fairs, and galleries, though this institutional recognition has culminated with major museums incorporating his work into their permanent collections. Through these milestones Osinachi is actively playing a role in legitimizing digital art within traditional art world spaces.

[1] “The Writers’ Community: Young Writers in the University of Nigeria,” November 13, 2014, https://culturaldaily.com/the-writers-community-young-writers-university-of-nigeria/.

[2] “A Man and His Breasts - Cultural Daily,” December 17, 2015, https://culturaldaily.com/a-man-and-his-breasts/.

[3] “How Africa’s Foremost Crypto Artist Is Changing The Way We Perceive Masculinity — A NASTY BOY,” May 17, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210517102523/https://anastyboy.org/home/how-nigerias-foremost-crypto-artist-is-changing-the-way-we-perceive-masculinity.

[4] “OSINACHI - EXISTENCE AS PROTEST,” Kate Vass Galerie, accessed April 25, 2025, https://www.katevassgalerie.com/osinachi-solo-show-2020.

[5] Alex Yates, “Osinachi’s Journey From Nigeria to NFTs,” Nft Now (blog), August 30, 2021, https://nftnow.com/art/osinachi-interview-nigeria-nfts/.

[6] “Authentic Digital Art - Take the Stares | SuperRare,” SuperRare | CryptoArt | NFT Art Marketplace | Digital Art, February 12, 2024, https://superrare.com/0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0/take-the-stares-7030.

[7] MacKenzie Sigalos, “From $10 Billion to Zero: How a Crypto Hedge Fund Collapsed and Dragged Many Investors down with It,” CNBC, July 11, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/11/how-the-fall-of-three-arrows-or-3ac-dragged-down-crypto-investors.html.

[8] “Take the Stares | GRAILS: Starry Night | Contemporary NFT,” Sotheby’s, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.sothebys.com/buy/983c3072-ff7a-4bda-9c01-bc5af5334267/lots/82c19366-0f2b-40ab-9cbe-5d1bc30092f2.

[9] “Osinachi: NFT Sale with Christie’s,” daria borisova, accessed March 29, 2024, https://dariaborisova.com/osinachi.

[10] “A Collection of NFTs: The Buffalo AKG’s Historic Acquisition of Digital Art | Buffalo AKG Art Museum,” accessed March 29, 2024, https://buffaloakg.org/blog/collection-nfts-buffalo-akgs-historic-acquisition-digital-art.

[11] “Osinachi Is Rewriting Art History at the Toledo Museum,” accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.christies.com/en/stories/osinachi-at-the-toledo-museum-of-art-0948941366f24ef19c9d11739ebda421.

[12] “Permanent Collection Series – MoA+L,” accessed April 3, 2025, https://artlightmuseum.org/permanent-collection-series/.

[13] “Tennis Player, Osinachi, OpenSea,” accessed April 3, 2025, https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756/21178.

Part of my thesis for the Executive Master in Art Market Studies 2023-25 at the University of Zurich.

Osinachi is a self-taught digital artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. Born in 1991, he grew up in Aba, where before developing an interest in visual art, he had a passion for writing and literature. [1] He wrote poems, plays, short fiction stories, and essays, and was an active member of the writing community of the University of Nigeria. In one of his essays, A Man and his Breasts, Osinachi goes over his struggles of growing up with gynecomastia, which deeply affected his perception of masculinity, a theme that he explored in depth later on in his art. [2]

In parallel to being a passionate writer, Osinachi was involved with digital art from very early in his life. In 2005, he discovered the drawing tools in Microsoft Word at a cyber cafe that he frequented to type his scripts. “I started exploring [the drawing tools] and took a deep interest in it. Whenever I saw a computer or laptop, I would head straight to Microsoft Word and start trying to create things.” [3] Eventually his passion for visual art will overtake that of writing, as it becomes easier for him to express himself through art. “I like giving my work room to evolve and that's not very easy for me in writing. I don't have the stamina to do a lot of writing, honestly." [3] He graduated from the university in 2014 and shortly after decided to pursue a career as an artist.

In 2018, he became the first-ever Nigerian artist to showcase artworks at the Ethereal Summit, a conference in New York that seeked to bridge the gap between technology and art through blockchain. Shortly afterwards he was shortlisted for the Bridgeman Studio Award 2019. In January 2019, he published A Boy Can Be Anything, his first work on SuperRare. His subsequent works on the platform are going to catapult his career.

2020 is a transformative year for the artist in terms of recognition and even more importantly his own style. While he continues to tackle topics of masculinity, LGTBQ rights, family life, and pop culture in Africa, he evolves the faux-naïf style that he utilized to add texture to his characters and starts using the signature dark gray color in bodies without eyes that accompanies his works to this day. At the same time, he starts using the GIF format in many of his works to animate his characters.

In March 2020 he had his first ever solo show named Existence as Protest at Kate Vass Galerie in Zurich. Jason Bailey, an early supporter of crypto art and Osinachi, writes in the foreword of the show: “Osinachi is a brilliant protest artist. Rather than depict dramatic scenes of struggle and conflict as is often typical with protest art, his weapon of choice is to highlight normalcy and positivity. His government has some of the most vicious anti-LGTBQ laws in the world, yet he chooses to celebrate this community in the face of these laws by showing its members happily living their lives as everyday human beings. By avoiding negativity and drama and simply presenting positive images of people just trying to live their lives, Osinachi completely defangs anti-LGBTQ propaganda. Rather than pour gas on a fire, he extinguishes it all together.” [4]

Beyond mentioning his grandmother when asked about his influences, Osinachi credits Devan Shimoyama, Tschabalala Self, and Njideka Akunyili-Crosby. He relates to Njideka’s art expressing what it was like to be raised as an Igbo child in an Igbo home. He appreciates Tschabalala for exaggerating the female figure and celebrating women, and Shimoyama for celebrating the male body. [5] Continuing his gradual exposure to the art world, Osinachi's Resignation and A Portrait of the Artist at 29 were exhibited in Art Basel 2021 at Galerie Nagel Draxler's Crypto Kiosk.

2021 also marked the peak of the crypto and NFT markets, with some of Osinachi's works trading above $100,000 in both primary and secondary markets. His highest selling work to date is Take The Stares, which Osinachi originally sold in January 2020 for just over $300, then was resold in August 2021 for $96,000, only to be flipped two months later for $180,000. [6] The final purchaser was the infamous hedge fund 3AC, which ironically went bankrupt a few months later, an event that exacerbated the crypto market crash of 2022. [7] As part of 3AC's liquidation proceedings, Take The Stares was auctioned at Sotheby's in January 2024 for $20,320, marking Osinachi's first appearance at the prestigious auction house. [8]

Before Sotheby’s, Osinachi had already established his presence in the major auction houses by auctioning works in the primary market at Christie’s. In October 2021 he auctioned Different Shades of Water at Christie’s London, a series of five works inspired by David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972. This sale made him the first African artist to sell NFTs at Christie’s. [9] All five works sold for a total of £155,000. He would return to sell at Christie’s again two years later.

2022 proved to be a challenging year for the entire crypto industry, with artists in the NFT market feeling the impact as well. However, this was also the year when museums began seriously acquiring works from these artists for their permanent collections. In December 2022, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum acquired 16 artworks from NFT artists, establishing the first major collection of blockchain artists at an art museum in the United States. [10] One of the works acquired was Osinachi’s +rave-sing (traversing), which was also sold as an NFT edition of four to the public.

Osinachi's museum discourse continued into 2023 when he enrolled in an art residency at the Toledo Museum of Art, marking the first time in the institution's history that a digital artist was selected as a resident. According to Adam Levine, the museum's director: “We had been thinking about how we could fully engage with artists who create digitally, bringing artists into our community, and going into theirs. Our goal was to treat digital art as art, and to give them the opportunity to explore their own practice and really build on this notion of community, which is as important for us here as it is in the Web3 space.” [11] One of the notable outcomes of this residency was Abitt: The Second Renaissance is Coming, a work by Osinachi with imagery deeply rooted in Toledo's history and contemporary times. The piece was auctioned at Christie's for $16,864, with the Toledo Museum of Art acquiring the artist's proof.

Shooting: The Fire, another artwork created by Osinachi during his Toledo residency that illustrates how retaliatory responses perpetuate rather than resolve conflict, was acquired by The Museum of Art + Light in Manhattan, Kansas in March 2025. [12] Around the same time, Tennis Player, a self-portrait by the artist created in 2020, will be sold for more than $50,000 in the secondary market, [13] signifying how sought-after Osinachi's early GIF works have become.

Osinachi's journey from creating digital art on Microsoft Word in Nigerian cyber cafes to institutional recognition around the world exemplifies the art world's gradual but definitive institutionalization of digital and NFT art. He has established a presence in auction houses, art fairs, and galleries, though this institutional recognition has culminated with major museums incorporating his work into their permanent collections. Through these milestones Osinachi is actively playing a role in legitimizing digital art within traditional art world spaces.

[1] “The Writers’ Community: Young Writers in the University of Nigeria,” November 13, 2014, https://culturaldaily.com/the-writers-community-young-writers-university-of-nigeria/.

[2] “A Man and His Breasts - Cultural Daily,” December 17, 2015, https://culturaldaily.com/a-man-and-his-breasts/.

[3] “How Africa’s Foremost Crypto Artist Is Changing The Way We Perceive Masculinity — A NASTY BOY,” May 17, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210517102523/https://anastyboy.org/home/how-nigerias-foremost-crypto-artist-is-changing-the-way-we-perceive-masculinity.

[4] “OSINACHI - EXISTENCE AS PROTEST,” Kate Vass Galerie, accessed April 25, 2025, https://www.katevassgalerie.com/osinachi-solo-show-2020.

[5] Alex Yates, “Osinachi’s Journey From Nigeria to NFTs,” Nft Now (blog), August 30, 2021, https://nftnow.com/art/osinachi-interview-nigeria-nfts/.

[6] “Authentic Digital Art - Take the Stares | SuperRare,” SuperRare | CryptoArt | NFT Art Marketplace | Digital Art, February 12, 2024, https://superrare.com/0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0/take-the-stares-7030.

[7] MacKenzie Sigalos, “From $10 Billion to Zero: How a Crypto Hedge Fund Collapsed and Dragged Many Investors down with It,” CNBC, July 11, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/11/how-the-fall-of-three-arrows-or-3ac-dragged-down-crypto-investors.html.

[8] “Take the Stares | GRAILS: Starry Night | Contemporary NFT,” Sotheby’s, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.sothebys.com/buy/983c3072-ff7a-4bda-9c01-bc5af5334267/lots/82c19366-0f2b-40ab-9cbe-5d1bc30092f2.

[9] “Osinachi: NFT Sale with Christie’s,” daria borisova, accessed March 29, 2024, https://dariaborisova.com/osinachi.

[10] “A Collection of NFTs: The Buffalo AKG’s Historic Acquisition of Digital Art | Buffalo AKG Art Museum,” accessed March 29, 2024, https://buffaloakg.org/blog/collection-nfts-buffalo-akgs-historic-acquisition-digital-art.

[11] “Osinachi Is Rewriting Art History at the Toledo Museum,” accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.christies.com/en/stories/osinachi-at-the-toledo-museum-of-art-0948941366f24ef19c9d11739ebda421.

[12] “Permanent Collection Series – MoA+L,” accessed April 3, 2025, https://artlightmuseum.org/permanent-collection-series/.

[13] “Tennis Player, Osinachi, OpenSea,” accessed April 3, 2025, https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756/21178.