AURIEA’S CREATIVE DESTINY
“NFTs have given me this opportunity to approach the art world on my terms.”
Crypto art as a genre is not a new creation. Digital art pioneers have been experimenting with this art form for decades, pretty much since computers were made available for home users. Auriea Harvey is an OG in this art space. She’s been creating fantastic digital art long before NFTs – 30 years ago, to be exact.
What started as a fun activity during school transitioned to her becoming a world-renowned digital artist and sculptor. “I started using Photoshop 1.0 to make photo collages, basic drawings, and things like that,” this Rome, Italy-based multidisciplinary artist shares. “During this time, my art teachers told me not to use the computer that way because it wasn’t art. I would mostly draw with a mouse or do photo manipulations.” If only those art teachers knew…
Auriea’s creative destiny was further solidified by her mother, a punch-card operator: “She saw computers as the future and put me in a computer club at a very young age.” This means she has been involved in computer programming since the early Eighties.
Having dabbled in everything from video games and coding to 3d programming, Auriea was destined to be involved and engrossed in the world of digital art. “ I was very drawn to using computers for artistic purposes.”
The big question was: in what capacity? While studying to be a sculptor, Auriea’s first step would come from video games and the internet. “As soon as I saw the internet, I dropped everything I was doing… I saw an opportunity to create interactive things that anyone could connect to.”
After spending more than a decade in video game development, Auriea felt that her creative journey in this sphere was beginning to plateau: “I felt like I said everything I had to say in the medium of commercial videogames. There was nothing left that I wanted to do in this format.”
NFTs and crypto art make for the perfect partners. It was a signal for a new adventure in digital art – and Auriea’s creativity has sparked a journey into sculpting and NFTs, the first of its kind. “NFTs have given me this opportunity to approach the art world on my terms.” As they say, the rest is now history.
