New York’s Emily Xie is exploring the new frontier of digital art by combining her skills and passion for computer science and generative art.
In a little under two years, since she minted her first NFT in March 2021, she has caught the attention of prolific collectors, such as Punk6529, DC Investor and Bob Loukas, and recently left her software engineering job to pursue life as a full-time artist.
“I studied art history, took studio art courses, but also studied computational science and engineering. I made all sorts of art growing up, but it was more in a traditional media way. As a software engineer, I was always hoping to combine my love for programming as well as my love for art and creativity,” says Xie.
“Generative Patchwork and Bullseye” by Emily Xie. (Hypemoon)
Discovering generative art
“I found that desire in generative art in around 2015–2016. It made a lot of sense making art with code. You don’t get any more of a direct and elegant combination than that of those two fields.”
“It’s so full of exploration. You’re engaging with technology in a way that’s creative because it exercises both sides of the brain, and that’s a rare thing to encounter.”
Xie attributes her love for making generative art to the freedom it gives her to let her creativity loose, and she gets lost in the process.
“Assemblage #6” on Tezos Blockchain by Emily Xie. (Objkt)
“Generative art is meditative for me. Whenever I made it, I got really sucked into it. The world around me would just disappear, and I would spend hours just programming and seeing what the algorithm might do.”
“Prior to NFTs, there was not very much opportunity to actually make a living out of it. When NFTs did come along, it was the first time where I actually saw a pathway for myself to be making a living as an artist.”
Inspired by East Asian art, Xie’s collection “Memories of Qilin” was launched via Art Blocks a year ago and has now seen over 4,400 ETH…
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