I had the pleasure of speaking with the up-and-coming artist on a late night whilst we played the popular video game, Apex Legends. This may not have been the brightest idea, because our discussion was often derailed by the struggle to stay alive. Though, it made for a fun night, and I was able to learn more about the budding digital surrealist.

Q: When did you start creating art?

A: Back in 2015, I was making memes and shit with a pirated copy of photoshop, and that’s what got me into art… I was probably around 14 years old, at the time.

Q: How did you get the name ‘Avekno’?

A: I came up with it randomly by typing a bunch of characters on a keyboard until something cool came up.

Q: When did you get into crypto/NFTs?

A: Early 2020, back when NFTs were something that people didn’t know about… I was pretty much the first person in my friend group to get into crypto art.

Q: Have you collected any NFTs?

A: The only thing I really collect is other artists’ work. I’m not super into collectibles, to be honest. I collect my friends’ work and also support smaller artists.

Q: Before selling NFTs and crypto art, did you sell any physical art?

A: I have sold a few physicals, and most of my money came from commissions. Such as making Twitter banners for e-sports people and organizations who needed branding… I think they’re fun as long as I get a decent amount of creative freedom, which a lot of the time, you don’t.

Q: What led you to start minting?

A: I saw FEWOCiOUS and other people [minting]… and got into crypto art around the same time that they did… I saw it as a revolution for digital artists and thought, I want to do that so I can support people and make new friends.

Q: Do you remember the first website that you minted on?

A: I believe it was Rarible, then I moved to OpenSea back when you still had to pay gas to mint… around October 2020… I was really early but never gained enough traction to do anything with it.

Q: I know you’ve minted work on a few blockchains, but what made you move away from Ethereum?

A: Honestly, gas prices on Ethereum are outrageous, and as a small artist, I don’t have money to mint something… just for it to sit there for multiple months. Another reason is, one of my buddies hit me up and was like, “you would do really well on Solana”, so I gave it a try and turns out, I’ve been pretty successful here.

Q: Why do you think you’ve had more success on Solana compared to Ethereum?

A: I think it’s because there’s more people that want to support 1/1 artists, whereas on Ethereum the focus seems to be PFP projects.

Q: I’m not too knowledgeable on the Solana ecosystem, but which marketplaces do you primarily share your work on?

A: I’ve been on Formfunction, it’s basically an invite-only platform like Foundation, but it’s community driven and the community picks who is accepted next. I’ve also minted on Holaplex and Exchange.Art.

Q: Are there any Discord servers that you recommend, specific to the Solana community?

A: There’s a server called the Underground Royalty Society, and it’s basically a collective of artists, and they have their own NFT where holders are airdropped art, every month… I pretty much hang around their server and Twitter spaces.

Q: Where do you get your inspiration from?

A: Other artists on Twitter, such as bhare, he’s a neo-expressionist artist. Also, aleqth, my homie emotionull, my friend mew, and basically the entirety of Burrito DAO.

Q: As an artist, out of all the PFP projects, which art do you like the most?

A: I’m a fan of basic stuff, like Punks. Pixel art is really cool.

Q: Do you create art full-time?

A: Yes, pretty much. Fortunately, I still live with my mom, so I don’t have to pay as many bills, but art is my only source of income… recently it has been good to me, but I did go through a dry spell for awhile. That’s the thing with art, money comes and goes.

Q: Take me behind the scenes, how do you go about making your art? What’s your creative process like?

A: I go on a free stock image website, and kind of edit the pictures to make them look cool… that’s pretty much my art process (laughs)… I love adding texture to my pieces though, whether it be real life or digital.

Q: Do you have any long-term goals for your art?

A: Honestly, to end up in a gallery somewhere at some point… I like sharing art with the world and I want to keep my art accessible.

If you made it to the end, thank you so much for reading. Please consider following Avekno, their links are listed below.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/avekno Formfunction: https://formfunction.xyz/@avekno Exchange.Art: https://exchange.art/series/forgotten days/nfts Holaplex: https://syhn.holaplex.com/