“It’s odd how linked NFTs and digital art have become,” says 3D animator and artist Sam Shea. “I think it spiked from things like Beeple’s success.” Beeple is the US digital artist who in 2021 sold an NFT of his work for a cool $69 million at Christie’s.

For Shea, who works under the pseudonym Nude Robot, digital art has been stampeding forward for a while and it’s no surprise. “Everything just gets pulled by the gravity of our society’s transformation. Naturally art was going to become predominantly digital because this is our new reality.”

Shea creates video art that blends real footage with surreal figurative work. Water and fluid often inspire the movement of Shea’s figures and many of them are set against “the mundanity of Los Angeles”. As well as water, the artist draws upon a niche set of references including bug and bird photography, as well as underwater creatures from the deep sea.