How Mieke Marple Combines The Reach Of NFTs With The Traditional Art World

Mieke Marple is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles who has made the transition from the traditional art gallery world to Web3 and digital art, keeping a foot in both worlds as a way to share more of her work and raise money for causes she supports.

Marple will speak at Benzinga’s Future of Crypto conference on Dec. 7 in New York City.

The Artist and Art: Mieke’s work is popular in and out of the Web3 community. She is the creator of the Medusa Collection, a set of generative art NFTs reframing the Medusa myth, as well as co-founder of NFTuesdayLA and was co-owner of Night Gallery in Los Angeles from 2011-2016.

In a recent op-ed Marple contributed to HuffPost, she explained her reasons for stepping away from the traditional gallery world.

“I have been sure to find avenues outside the art world to support myself — including NFTs, teaching and publishing — because I never want to be so wholly reliant on a single field that I would be too afraid of the potential consequences to speak up,” Marple said.

Reflective of her experience in the traditional art world, Marple has sought out collaborations rather than dropping more iterations of her Medusa project.

Most recently she participated in a show with Non-Fungible Castle (NFC). The House of Lobkowicz, a Czech noble family has reinstalled 50 priceless works of art as part of the NFC event.

The project said of itself on its website, “Non-Fungible Castle 2022 will explore how blockchain technology can be used to rediscover, share and preserve our cultural identities.”

Giving Back: Through charity art auctions, Marple helped raise more than a million dollars for Planned Parenthood LA and a quarter million for Critical Resistance, an organization with the aim to dismantle the prison-industrial complex. In the NFT space, Marple has continued fundraising for groups such as Girls Who Code and she exhibited with Artists who Code, a generative NFT collaboration for women and non-binary artists.

The Future: Maple has brought her innovative creative spirit from the traditional art world to NFTs. She has a perspective and approach that takes advantage of the strengths of both worlds to bring attention to an artist and a platform for their work.

In an interview with Benzinga, Marple sounded bullish on the future of Web3 to help platform and fund artists like her and represent artists of all backgrounds everywhere.

"The future of crypto will be the result of whatever seeds we are sowing now, so let us make them thoughtful, inclusive, and empowering for all,” Marple said.

This story is part of the Benzinga Future of Crypto 2022 summit-related content. Marple will be speaking about the intersection of art and technology at the first Future of Crypto live summit on Dec. 7 in New York City at Pier Sixty.

Some of the best minds and most important projects in Web3 will be in attendance, including Cosmos, Yuga Labs, Solana, Laguna Labs and Algorand. Keynote speakers include Jordan Belfort, Kevin O’Leary and Anthony Scaramucci.

Cover image used by permission from MiekeMarple.com