We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Burka Bayram a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Burka thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Yes! and I wish it had been like this from day one. It has been exactly one year since I quit my job as a designer and became a full-time artist and it was the best professional year of my life!

Well, I was born in Istanbul in 1993 as the son of a painter/academic mother and a graphic designer/political cartoonist father. Therefore, I can say that I have been involved in the visual arts since I was born. I started working from the age of 16 because my family’s economic situation was not going well over the years. I worked as a graphic designer both during my high school and university life, after school I worked as a designer in agencies in the same way, then I continued to work as a freelancer and this situation continued uninterruptedly until about 2020.

Although I earned my living as a graphic designer, I never found the creative freedom it provided me to be enough, I wanted to divert my route a little more to my mother’s path, as an artist… and that year I heard about something called NFTs. It seemed like a utopian idea at first, I had a hard time understanding it, but I realized that it had a revolutionary side against the conventional art world and I embraced that aspect.

Frankly, I couldn’t sell well at first, I didn’t like the current system and unfortunately I had to spend money that people like me who live outside the first world could not afford. In addition to all these, I had some ecological concerns when I understood and learned the technology better, but I came across a brand new alternative through the people I follow.

When we came to March 2021, I was almost going to abandon this path completely and return to graphic design, but a platform called Hic et Nunc and a brand new concept called Clean NFT entered my life. Since this originated in Brazil, the problems of people in similar countries like me could be understood and it allowed me to be in this world at no cost, moreover it was completely ecological and sustainable!

In a short time, I established very good relations with hundreds of artists from dozens of different countries. Instead of waiting for a single angel collector like waiting for Godot, we started collecting each other’s works and each of us became both an artist and a collector. We organized exhibitions both online and in various parts of the world, we worked together for this alternative and showed the whole art world that the NFT world can progress in another way, a cleaner way. In fact, thanks to this experience, we can now say that all NFTs in different blockchains set these ecological standards, and I think this is our biggest achievement.

Since I have been in this movement from the very beginning, I gained a certain respect over time and my own illustration and animation style was also appreciated by people. Maybe I don’t make a lot of money, but at least I can earn enough to run my life only from the works I draw. Moreover, I do all of this without smelling the breath of a ruthless boss or spoiled customer, which has been a dream come true for me after 12 years of graphic designer (exploited digital worker) life.

And finally, I’ve been realizing my dream project for 10 months and I’ve been releasing a comic zine called Sloth with the illustrators I met all around the world!

Burka, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Although I worked as a graphic designer in the advertising industry for years, I always had an artistic side in me. I was always trying to paint in my spare time in order not to be completely immersed in the spirit of that commercial world, and I was participating in group exhibitions as much as I could, of course, these were always local exhibitions.

NFTs, on the other hand, allowed me to suddenly find myself in an international environment and allowed me to meet people who could understand me. I was able to publish my style, which I had been working on for years but had not dared to publish, when I met these people, and I got a great feedback.

I position my art at a point between abstract art and comics. This weird colorless but lively style emerged as a result of my obsession with being able to explain my problems in the simplest way possible. While I was finding the subjects, I set out from my life, but these were actually social problems, so I mostly talked about social injustice in my works. That’s how people know me, too, and I think the fact that I drew and animated the entire Communist Manifesto had a big impact on that. And of course I have a fascination with Paul Lafargue, son-in-law of Karl Marx and the author of The Right to be Lazy. That’s why the zine I’ve created is called Sloth, we don’t use this animal as a mascot just because it’s cute, it’s trying to tell something to all artists!

I am also the father of four cats and two dogs. Together with my wife, we are constantly rescuing and treating stray animals that are sick or injured. They also often visit my illustrations and stories, sometimes they appear in mythological stories and sometimes just with us, I love them so much! I wish we didn’t exceed our quota, but we could save even more animals. Let’s see, we’re in court now because our landlord tried to kick us out of the house and replace us with rich people. That’s why our plan is to leave the city and move on to a quieter but artistic life, full of rescued animals.

After all, I don’t have to go to the office regularly anymore, all I need is paper, pen, ipad, laptop and a stable internet connection. Therefore, being in a village or a city does not change anything for me. Digital art used to only gain likes on social media that I couldn’t eat, but now it allows me to manage my life, fill my stomach and spend more time with my family!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think the clearest answer to this question is to stay away from toxic positivity and stay as human as possible. Especially since the NFT world is like a free market place, people always build a positive image on social media by using certain methodologies without taking risks, which turns all people into self-promo bots. This always seemed insincere to me and I followed the opposite path in my communication.

Other than that, instead of ignoring what I don’t think is right in this crypto art environment I mentioned, I always criticize and strive to ensure the development of the community, I have people discuss. Some people were offended by me or found it grumpy because of it, but more people understood me as well. I didn’t do it on a planned basis anyway, because I’m human, I acted as if I wanted to. If I do everything in a planned way, I kind of become a robot, which is the last thing I want in art and limits me. In other words, sometimes the opposite direction of communication than people seems risky, but it can lead to good results, as long as you are yourself. This is how I built my audience on social media.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I don’t know if I am a good example in this… Because instead of waiting for that angel collector to come, I started collecting works from the artists I love and unknowingly became a collector by accident. I believed so much in this independent art world and came across so many wonderful artists that I couldn’t help myself. Currently, there are 3824 works from 1181 different artists in my collection. I collected all of them with the money I earned from the artworks I sold, so I shared them with talented artists who were like me but couldn’t sell enough, this is my way.

Anyone can support an artist anywhere in the world within their budget, and this has become much simpler thanks to NFTs and printed editions. Just collect if you really like and admire an artist instead of liking them, because we can’t eat likes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://burkabayram.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burkabayram
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burkabayram
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/burkabayramart
• Other: https://linktr.ee/burkabayram

Image Credits
Photos by Lina İrem Arditty