Sometimes graffiti is temporary, but this isn’t one of those times. Autograph & theBUKU + Art Project have partnered with renowned visual artists to bring together the first-ever official BUKU NFT collection for this year’s festival.

Recognized for their contributions to the culture of New Orleans via street art, graffiti, murals and other mediums, each artist has created a 1-of-1 NFT that will be auctioned off via OpenSea beginning on March 25th at 1pm EST and running through March 28th at 3pm EST.

In advance of the auction, we’re previewing the entire collection to learn more about the artists and the inspiration behind each of their pieces.

Ceaux

Bio: Courtney “Ceaux” Buckley is a New Orleans-born multidisciplinary artist living and working in New Orleans, Louisiana. For over a decade, Ceaux’s robustly vivid paintings have pierced through the rich pulsating cultural fabric of New Orleans and its people. His career background includes musical production, education, and fashion design, which has given him a unique capability to focus on a range of subjects not commonly covered by other visual artists.

About the piece: “Vieux Dew” represents a modernized priestess. She is clairvoyant and reads energies exceptionally well. She’s a native-born New Orleanian from a family that shares her same talents.

View the NFT: ‘Vieux Dew‘

Dvote

Bio: Dvote is an artist, specializing in graffiti art, and illustration.  Currently living and working in New Orleans, LA.  He has made many contributions to both BUKU and the New Orleans graffiti community.  Subjects generally depicted include distorted and melted skulls, faces, and other organic mutations, and general sense of fear and weirdness.

About the piece: The inspiration for this comes largely from watching Ancient Aliens, and the idea that humans are the byproduct of an alien science experiment, mixing their own outworld DNA with that of earth primates from centuries past, resulting in the creation of humans. Also the Interconnectivity of different life forms through time.

Link to NFT: ‘Ancient Aliens Number 2‘

Fat Kids

Bio: Born in the early 80s, stranded in New Orleans since 2004. I get a great deal of satisfaction from creating. I don’t think art has to have a purpose, narrative, or meaning all the time. I believe there is a general joy and positivity in creating just for the sake of creating.

About the piece: I was watching DUCK-MAN PRIVATE DICK/FAMILY MAN and smoking. This was the result of said combination.

Link to NFT: ‘States of a dancing white worm, the Devils, and the infected individuals in turn‘

Hugo Gyrl

Bio: Hugo Gyrl is the pseudonym of a street artist and curator based in New Orleans. Their work can be seen on murals and gallery walls in most major cities. While Hugo Gyrl is often cloaked in costume, and their identity remains mostly a mystery, they have generated a cult following due to the comical innuendos and femme-friendly symbolism echoed in their art.

About the piece: Like a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup; this piece combines my two most savory passions: Graffiti and Drag.

Link to NFT: ‘Working the Corner‘

MK Ultra

Bio: MK ULTRA is the latest nom de plume of new orleans artist Meek One (TM).  For the last 15 years he has been contributing to the culture of New Orleans through his screenprint + design company that supplies garment decoration services to designers, entrepreneurs and local businesses.  His work has been seen in the pages of the Times-Picayune and on the walls of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He also produces interior and exterior murals under the name New Orleans Paint + Design, working for such notable clients as Yoko Ono and the Ace Hotel.

About the piece: This piece is inspired by my interest in hermetic philosophy and ancient history.

Link to NFT: ‘As Above So Below‘

Monica Rose Kelly

Bio:  Monica Rose Kelly is an analog and digital artist who has always been heavily influenced by the elements of hip hop. She specializes in murals, illustration, projection art, and public art collaborations via the non-profit she founded, People for Public Art.

About the piece: Monica Rose has always been passionate about dance as a form of expression and is a lover of the Earth. Dancing Roots combines her early influences of breaking and graffiti, showing love to all of the different forms of dance that root us from our feet to our planet.

Link to NFT: ‘Dancing Roots‘

Paws

Bio: PAWS creates work across media spanning from screen to paper to wall to train. At the age of 18, PAWS relocated to New Orleans, 3 days before Katrina made landfall, and spent the next 12 years coming of age with the city and cutting his teeth making art in the abandoned structures that the hurricane left in its wake. During that time he participated in, supported, and celebrated the city’s graffiti scene, most notably by founding the BUKU Live Art Gallery in 2012.

About the piece: This piece of animated graffiti is a love letter from PAWS to american freight graffiti. He loves watching graffiti roll by on freight trains so much that he asked himself, “what if I could watch freight trains roll by on graffiti as well?”

Link to NFT: ‘Under the Bridge‘

The Reader

Bio: Hailing from parts unknown, The Reader, aka Boaney Mane, age 47 1/2, has been a staple of the woke graffiti world since 1992. His message is simultaneously ephemeral and enduring.   Most known for large scale and legible typography, this enigmatic artist has repeatedly canvassed the continental 48.  Offering simple instructions such as “Open Your Eyes” and “Read To Your Children”,  the work of this graffiti vandal goes beyond sub-culture and resonates with the masses, and their ability to be swayed towards practically any agenda.  Trading an itinerant lifestyle for real-estate acquisitions and automobile hoarding, The Reader has anchored himself to New Orleans in await of the rising sea levels.

About the piece: The piece is an animation comprised of chalk drawings done in the hobo tradition of affixing iconography to the sides of train cars. Honoring this archetypal American anti-hero, while citing quotes from literature and contemporary music, this is a small sampling out of thousands that the artist has applied to the freight lines of North America.

Link to NFT: ‘Rail Spit‘