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Tyrone Webb, a single father and full-time artist at the Banana Factory, crafts worlds of Fantasy and Sci-Fi with spray paint as his only medium. In an effort to better serve the Banana Factory, his fellow resident artists, and the community, Webb has taken a leap into the world of Virtual Reality. Combining years of technical experience with his devotion to the arts, Tyrone has been working tirelessly to create new spaces for artists to hang, show, and sell their work. Partnering with a fledgling VR collaborative software maker (Spatial), he has been instrumental in the adoption of VR galleries as a suitable extension of real-world gallery walls. Through hosting Virtual Gallery Openings, Tyrone continues to encourage new and established artists to participate, selling and commissioning work through his virtual space.
With NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) quickly finding their way as the latest art trend, Webb found himself a trailblazer for his fellow artists. Having already minted over 30 of his paintings with digital enhancements, he’s begun to assist other artists in navigating the alien landscapes of this new technology.
“Artists must use whatever tools they possess to ensure longevity in this industry and adopting new methods to reach an audience and diversify one’s market is priority one.”
The end result is teaching artists how they can increase their sales, utilizing this additional tool to engage with a much larger audience. Webb has sold some of his own NFTs, earning himself a spot among some of the most coveted marketplaces within the industry. With this experience, he is best positioned to become a subject matter expert and to hold the gates open for his fellow artists. The final step is including this new catalog of works in a Virtual Gallery where clients and the general public can join from their computer, phone, or a VR headset like the Oculus Quest 2, spending time with the actual artists—seeing what they’re working on from the comfort of their own home. He has met distinguished, legendary artists in VR and has stood on equal footing when it pertains to the adoption of all this new technology. Through the VR world, Webb has received and shared advice on being a full-time artist from masters with decades of experience—opportunities that could only have presented themselves by traversing through the VR Metaverse.
