We recently connected with Chris Trueman and have shared our conversation below.

Chris , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I have been making a full time living from my artwork since shortly after leaving Claremont Graduate School in 2010 but the journey of getting there has been a lengthy one with many twists and turns. I had been making and showing paintings since I was a teenager. The first time I traveled Europe was financed off of painting sales from a show I did at a restaurant in Sacramento when I was 19. Before leaving to travel I had applied to the San Francisco Art institute and attended a portfolio day. I knew I needed a scholarship to attend as I had no financial backing. I remember the call in Valencia, Spain where my parents relayed to me that I had gotten the scholarship to attend SFAI. When I returned I moved to San Francisco and found some roommates to live with. After my first semester I was back in my hometown Chico visiting my parents and friends when I received a call that my apartment complex had caught fire and was no longer livable. San Francisco was in the midst of a housing crunch and it was very difficult to find an apartment so I ended up sleeping at the school. We had 24 hour access so I would fall asleep on the couch in the sculpture yard or under a big ramp leading down to the painting dept. If security would find me they would move me on but I was allowed to be at school. One day a woman in my painting class said to me “you have the best work ethic of anyone here, when I arrive you are here, when I leave you are here” I didn’t tell her that it was because I slept on the chair in the corner. We became friends and she purchased some of my paintings. This turned out to be a very important relationship as she was married to one of the biggest developers in San Francisco and later on they would pay for my grad school and continue to support my work.

I think these early successes as well as the challenges gave me the tenacity to pursue art making as a full time profession. Having endured living at the school, toughing it out and not packing my bags and heading back to my hometown I knew that I was resourceful enough and dedicated enough to survive this industry. After grad school I set up a studio and while many of my peers went out seeking teaching gigs I focused on my studio work, creating opportunities and getting shows and showing up. I went to shows and I met people and I networked, I organized shows for other artists and I tried to help my peers. At this point I have had a number of interns and assistants and I have mentored several young artist and at the top of the advice I give them is to show up, and to try and provide opportunity for others. Too many young artists think that the way to “get there” is all about themselves and their work. I would argue that the way that you become a part of a community is what you provide the community not the other way around. Almost every opportunity that I have had was a recommendation from a friend or contact. Another piece of advice I would offer to a young artist is to treat everyone well, don’t burn any bridges, the art world is small and people will come and go and your careers will intersect with many people over and over again. You will thank yourself later that the next time you come across someone they will have a positive view of you and that may be important.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been an artist for all my life, I make abstract paintings and have been producing digital work that compliments and speaks to the physical. Most of my production has been for exhibitions at galleries in the US and abroad. My work explores the difference between the physical and digital and the way that social media impacts our relationship to the physical world even mounting a pair of exhibitions of paintings with digital replicas that opened simultaneously in Australia and LA with what appeared to be the same work in 2016.

In the last several years I have been involved in the digital art boom as an early adopter of NFT technology, originally minting my first NFT in 2018 and then as one of the first to drop on Nifty Gateway, the platform that is largely credited for the NFT boom. I spent most of 2021 and 2022 as a co-founder of a mobile NFT marketplace and have been deeply involved in the space as an artist, curator, collector and consultant. I am currently working on bridging the digital and physical art world by providing the infrastructure and setup for physical art galleries and assisting with curation, managing inventory and securing digital assets. I am a rare bird in the sense that there aren’t that many who have a foot in both realms and as such I have become the go-to for artists and galleries looking to participate in the digital and for digital artists who wish to increase their footprint in the physical space.

Digital art has been here far before the advent of NFTs, but blockchain and NFT technology is here to stay and if you can see through the noise you can see the enormous potential for artists and for the art world in general. This being said it can be a precarious place and protecting your digital assets requires some knowledge to follow best practices.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I was early in the NFT space originally minting in 2018 on the Digital Objects platform. Since then I have dropped on the curated platforms Nifty Gateway, Makersplace, Foundation and the open platforms Opensea, Known Origin and Objkt.com. I am an NFT collector, a wine/NFT project co-founder and I co-founded a mobile NFT marketplace. I have curated exhibitions of digital art and am working on bridging the digital and physical art worlds through a gallery within a gallery concept.

My opinion of the NFT space is that the headlines, massive sales and boom of 2021 and bust of 2022/2023 that have coincided with “crypto winter” was largely driven by venture capital money, early crypto adopters and covid stimulus driving the market up and as the money dried up and crypto crashed the NFT market generally fell as well. We are now in the post-bubble consolidation where many projects have died off and those still involved are consolidating around the artists and projects that have maintained value or grown.

Where do we start?

First it is important to separate PFP (profile picture) projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club from art projects such as thr33som3s. A PFP project is a brand and in the best case operates as a business. An art project however has a different objective, the best of these are not simply where the NFT is essentially a digital certificate of authenticity but where the there is an active use and reliance on the blockchain for the artwork to take form on a fundamental level. In this case the fact that each transaction and interaction is tracked and recorded is imperative to the conceptual foundation of the work.

So where are we going from here?

The stronger PFP brands will contiunue to consolidate and grow revenue streams through media, merchandise, advertising and merchandising.

The stronger artists and art projects will continue to draw participants who wish to expand their collecting to include digital and through greater institutional support. We see LACMA, SF MoMA, NYC MoMA, Centre Pompidou in Paris all starting to embrace digital art.

The NFT technology is expanding rapidly and we will see a much greater adoption amongst the mainstream as the technology becomes easier to use and with greater use cases.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Currently there is still a gap between the digital and physical art worlds. I’ve been working on bridging this gap over the last year, but we aren’t there yet. I have realized a main issue is the lack of infrastructure. A gallery can display digital art and can sell it to a client but this is where is breaks down. Does the client have the means to receive the work? What do they get when they buy it? Do they need to pay crypto for the artwork? How do they keep the work safe? How do they display the work? On the artist side perhaps they are making square video work, very few collectors have a square screen to display the work what can they do with it? Does the gallery or project mint for the artist? What blockchain should the artist use?

My goal is to address many of these questions, clarify what the gallery is selling and how it will be sold, transferred or stored for the client. Find square screens that properly display the work the artist is making. Help artists to create and manage digital assets properly. Source opportunities on public screens and displays for businesses. This will help to create a more sustainable digital art industry and enable physical galleries to enter the digital art market.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://christrueman.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truemanchris/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trueman.chris/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctrueman/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ctrueman

Image Credits
Photos by Chris Param