Meet the Leeds artist selling NFT art from his home who dreams of opening gallery

A Leeds artist who has become a pioneer with his NFT artworks dreams of opening his own gallery in the city after a boom in sales of his unique cartoons.
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Liam Formaniuk, 31, designs and makes the digital creations from his home before selling them online as NFT items.

NFT stands for non-fungible token – a digital asset that is a type of cryptocurrency.

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Bought and sold online, these digital assets represent a real-world object and often take the form of digital art or music.

Liam Formaniuk, 31, creates digital creations from his home before selling them online as NFT items.
Pic: Liam FormaniukLiam Formaniuk, 31, creates digital creations from his home before selling them online as NFT items.
Pic: Liam Formaniuk
Liam Formaniuk, 31, creates digital creations from his home before selling them online as NFT items. Pic: Liam Formaniuk

A huge boom in selling artwork as NFT has taken place recently, with Forbes estimating more than £100m in sales in just three years.

Liam, from Alwoodley, decided to try his hand at selling his art in this way in June this year.

His sales quickly rocketed and Liam is eager to explore every avenue of this new way of generating income from his art.

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Liam's main passion is called Ethereum Gods - cartoon artwork based on God characters from different cultures around the world.

This is one of the Roman God Mars - it was Liam's biggest sale to date 0.1337ETH, roughly $500
Pic: Liam FormaniukThis is one of the Roman God Mars - it was Liam's biggest sale to date 0.1337ETH, roughly $500
Pic: Liam Formaniuk
This is one of the Roman God Mars - it was Liam's biggest sale to date 0.1337ETH, roughly $500 Pic: Liam Formaniuk

He now uses funds generated by selling his art to buy NFTs from other artists and grow the community.

Speaking to the YEP about the new craze, Liam said: "I have been investing in crypto since the start of the year but the NFT aspect of blockchain technology seemed much more interesting to me.

"I find it unbelievable that people are literally paying for houses with cartoon jpegs.

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"Also, the community is great, everyone is genuinely rooting for each other."

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey recently sold the first-ever tweet for more than $2m.

Original World Wide Web source code has also been sold by Sir Tim Berners-Lee for more than $5m at auction house Sotheby's.

Liam is now hoping to reach out to more artists across Leeds who may be interested in selling and buying in this way.

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He added: "I've actually been looking to connect with other NFT artists from Leeds but it's proving difficult.

"I would say my more immediate goal is to earn enough money to open an NFT gallery in Leeds with other artists from the area."

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