NFT Art: Who Is William Mapan?

TL;DR
William Mapan is a digital artist who specializes in generative art and has released several notable NFT collections and 1/1 pieces. His work is very collectible, includes distinctive collections such as Anticyclone and Strands of Solitude, and this month saw the release of the Distance collection, while next month will bring the release of further new work on the Verse platform. William Mapan’s artworks may also be of interest to anyone looking at high quality NFT art for long-term investment purposes.

If you’re looking for NFT artists whose work is worth holding long-term, then William Mapan is a creator who should be on your radar. Of course, even if you’re buying as an investment, it also helps if the work in question is something that appeals to your artistic tastes, and while that’s a matter of opinion, there’s no shortage of fans who think that Mapan produces some very impressive compositions.

That in mind, let’s go ahead and take a look at the artist, his work up to now, and what he has planned for the near future.

Who Is William Mapan?

We can broadly classify William Mapan as a contemporary artist who specializes in creative coding and generative art, and who primarily releases his work as NFTs. Just to clear up terms, creative coding usually means using code for artistic purposes, and generative art refers to art that is computer generated according to instructions from an artist, although the components might be hand-crafted.

With generative art, the output is partly randomized, and an endless number of outputs can be created, but artists tend to cap their generative collections at a limited number.

Besides being a prominent artist in the NFT space, Mapan also works as a teacher at Paris visual arts school Gobelins, where he specializes in creative coding education.

William Mapan’s Style and Creations

As with much generative art, Mapan’s work is abstract and built around repeating shapes, palettes and patterns, but despite being fundamentally tech-integrated, his work often looks very organic, giving the appearance of naturally faded tones seeped into sometimes roughly-textured surfaces.

Here are Mapan’s key collections, collaborations, and individual artworks:

• Hic et Nunc: Mapan’s first NFTs were minted through Tezos art platform Hic et Nunc. These can be viewed, and some are for sale, on marketplace Objkt (check the dates on items, some are later creations).
• Dragons: The first extended collection by Mapan, and also available at Objkt, they were originally minted through another Tezos art platform, fx(hash), in 2021.
• Anticyclone: A highly distinctive collection released through Art Blocks in 2022, that fully marked out Mapan as a brilliant generative artist. Arguably his most important collection.
• 1935: Also minting through Art Blocks, later in 2022, this collection is connected to the Bright Moments collective, which had earlier shown the works in print.
• The Guardian: This starkly monochromatic edition of 80 was minted at the beginning of 2023 for Proof’s Grails Season 2 collection, within which it was one of the most highly anticipated pieces.
• Strands of Solitude: Another extended collection, this one minted in 2023 on the art platform Tonic, and these NFTs also come with physical prints.
• QQL: Mapan created item #206 on Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist’s QQL generative art platform. A little underwhelming compared to his other work (or at least, different), but this can be assigned to the mechanics of the platform.

Mapan has also created a wide variety of valuable 1/1 pieces, some of which were auctioned at Sotheby’s and Christie’s 3.0.

Recent and Upcoming William Mapan Mints

Distance

This week saw the release of Mapan’s new Distance collection, which was produced for Cactoid Labs as part of its Remembrance of Things Future project, which is in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

The collection draws inspiration from a piece of work in the LACMA collection by Paul Klee, it features 250 unique items, and the NFTs are, at the time of writing, trading on secondary from around 3 ETH, having minted at 2 ETH.

Verse Solo

Next month, Mapan will release his first work through the NFT art platform and meeting place Verse. The collection remains, at the moment, untitled, but there will also be a physical exhibition taking place in London, and there is likely to be plenty of attention around this mint.

Why Should I Buy William Mapan NFTs?

The most compelling reason to buy an artist’s work is, of course, because you like it and want to hang it on your wall. But you can’t hang NFTs on the wall (unless they come with prints included), so another good reason to buy art is as an investment.

In that second case–for investment purposes–you can look at how well contemporary and blue chip art has performed during high inflationary periods and over the past couple of decades, as compared to other asset classes, look also at how the art world is now consistently receptive to NFTs, and conclude that it might be a good idea to identify NFT artists favored by influential collectors and curators.

From there, it’s a case of placing some digital work in a cold wallet with a long time frame in mind, and if you’re doing that, then William Mapan is certainly a name to consider, as illustrated by how well his current release is performing, despite minting at a time when NFT markets are trading with extremely limited volumes. That kind of standout performance makes sense though, since Mapan’s compositions are expertly executed, and NFTs are rapidly becoming a fully accepted category within an open-minded art world.