POPSUGAR Australia is dedicating the month of October to featuring the next generation of inspired thinkers and courageous individuals who are building and manifesting a brighter future — because the next gen is unstoppable. We will deliver personal essays from young Australians who are making a name for themselves, as well as inspiring thought pieces and interviews with rising talent in the Web3 space throughout the month. Find all of our pieces here.
Imagine Paris Hilton sliding into your DMs to tell you she admires your work and wants to commission a piece from you. It was the reality for Sydney-based digital artist Serwah Attafuah. Not only that, but Hilton then went on to publicly shout out Attafuah on her website and Instagram.
“One of my favourite parts about being in the NFT community is discovering some of the most talented artists,” Hilton wrote as part of an International Women’s Day post.
“I was so grateful last year to commission a piece by an amazing artist named Serwah Attafuah for my Sotheby’s curation. I was instantly drawn to her work because it reminded me of the connection between women and the universe.”
Attafuah says she found out about the post through her auntie congratulating her and describes seeing it as awesome. She says she’s always looked up to Paris and that working with her on a piece of artwork was incredibly special.
Both of Attafuah’s parents are artists so she says she grew up making art. At 11, she started oil painting and soon after, digital art, and at 14, she left school to go straight into design college to study costume, props, sets, prosthetics and live production design.
“I’ve been making digital art since I was 12, but I’ve only probably been doing it as a full-time job for the past three years,” she tells POPSUGAR Australia.
“The pandemic really jumpstarted my career because everything needed to be done from home. A lot of brands, agencies and musicians turned to digital artists to create anything from campaigns, to music videos and album art, because we could do it so easily from home in a COVID-safe manner.”
Then, in mid-2020, Attafuah was contacted by a curator, Lindsay Howard, who asked her to create an NFT for Foundation, a platform that helps artists monetise their work. The NFT would be part of Foundation’s first-ever exhibition of digital art.
“I had no idea what an NFT was, but from the sounds of it, it really appealed to me,” she says. “I was so excited to create something in this new medium. I’ve been minting NFTs ever since then, and I loved every second of it.”
Today, Attafuah has days when she works from the moment she wakes up — rolling out of bed and jumping onto her computer in her studio space adjacent to her room — to when she goes to sleep. She says she typically tries to work on art first thing in the morning, rather than doing admin or answering emails as she’d rather get her creative juices flowing immediately.
“Nowadays, I’m finding myself doing more and more projects that get me out and about,” she says. “I’ve had the privilege of travelling quite a bit this year for work to places such as Seoul and Melbourne, as well as a bunch of cool places around Sydney.”
Attafuah says she thinks more women should be getting into the NFT space and Web3 in general because they offer so many incredible opportunities. Despite there being so much progress in the art space, Attafuah says she feels women are still often left out. “I think Web3 and the NFT space can help women and non-binary people create a platform on their terms really flourish,” she says.
To Attafuah, being unstoppable means not letting anyone or anything get in the way of dreams and aspirations. She says digital art has allowed her to become unstoppable. “I’m continuing to create what I want without physical boundaries,” she says.
