I started my journey as an artist with a small, humble show in Venice, CA on Feb 29, 2016 by intentionally lighting a stick of copal incense to mark my official entry to being a full time artist. Two years later I dove headfirst into the world of cryptoart, determined to help define and shape the most groundbreaking art revolution that we’ve witnessed in our lifetimes.
My Background
I was born in Lithuania which was still under Soviet occupation. At the age of 10, I marched in a freedom rally with my mother and sister, and soon after we secretly escaped the USSR less than a year before Lithuania gained its independence. I settled in Florida and spent my teens riding my BMX bike, playing basketball, and bouncing around the private / public school system. I got a full ride to University of Florida and ended up graduating with a 4.0 from Warrington College of Business 4 years later.
After a brief stint at Levin College of Law I dropped out from playing too much GTA I formed my own web development business. After starting one of the earliest online ordering companies for restaurants, I worked with local businesses to help them build out their online presence. In 2006 I landed Sotheby’s International Real Estate as a client, and in 2008 decided to switch into affiliate marketing full time.
Having been influenced by Future of Web Apps and 4 Hour Workweek, I decided to become a minimalist and digital nomad. I got rid of all my belongings and set off to live a lifestyle of constant travel while running a profitable business helping Verizon with their national FiOS rollout. This left me with a lot of time to explore the world and cultures all over the US, Carribbean, Europe, and Southeast Asia. I basically lived on airplanes a third of my time (nothing beats a 30k ft view).
I ran travel, WordPress, & photography blogs, and a variety of other web-based ventures. I explored the world, met with luminaries, ate delicious food, and interacted with people across the entire spectrum of human existence.
Having stayed at 5 star hotels all over the world I got kind of tired of travel and the luxurious lifestyle so I decided to go a step further into my minimalism by becoming a nobody (after an especially poignant float tank experience). This led me to eventually relinquish all known tethers to a semblance of a normal civilized life. For months I had no possessions, no ID, walked the streets of LA barefoot, slept in parks and on sidewalks and experienced what it was like to have nothing and no social status whatsoever. Homelessness proved to be extremely distressing on a level that’s difficult to explain. Thankfully after many years of integration and with the help of entheogens I’ve been able to assimilate and come out of that experience wiser and far more humble (and I still don’t have any of the answers to homelessness).
Since 2018, I minted artworks on the Ethereum blockchain – through thick and thin – because I saw the promise of a peer to peer decentralized, always-on opportunity to bring value to and reward artists for a craft that has been historically difficult to make into a full time career. I became my own patient zero by wanting to prove that you can be a full time cryptoartist (way before anyone even knew what that word meant) – to create what you love out of [ your own vision and heart ] – and to make it a sustainable way to live off your passion no matter your country of residence or origin.
A few thousand artworks later – and having ruffled quite a few feathers – I am now fairly well known in the cryptoart world and have been exhibited around the world in major cities, museums, and galleries.
In my art I am inspired by and guided by esoteric and mystical aspects of life and consciousness, having attended and facilitated ceremonies with the world’s most intense and powerful psychedelics (plant & animal “medicines”) – Ayahuasca, San Pedro / Wachuma, Psilocybin š, DMT, Kambo, Sonoran desert toad venom (5MEO-DMT), Sananga, Cacao ;P, etc. – so in a certain sense you can call me “well traveled” (if you’re into that whole double/triple/n-th-level entendre thing).
