Artistic Sensation BK The Artist is Breaking Into NFTs with UREEQA
Hours after rap icon DMX passed away earlier this month, internationally renowned painter and wildly popular Instagram standout Brian Kirhagis, AKA “BK The Artist”, was in a somber, reflective mood.
He recalled the time he approached the multi-platinum artist backstage at an event hosted by one of his early supporters, hip hop mogul Swizz Beatz. Before Kirhagis could introduce himself, DMX spoke.
“Yo, you’re BK, right?”
“I was mind blown,” BK remembered. “Little moments like that, I’ll cherish forever.”
It was an “I’ve made it” experience for Kirhagis, whose audience on Instagram has since grown to more than 165,000 followers.
The ride’s been wild. It moved into top gear when Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash became an early supporter and collaborator, it gained more speed when celebrities like Alicia Keys, T.I. and Carmelo Anthony became collectors of his work, and now the ride’s going digital as BK The Artist enters the NFT realm with UREEQA — a revolutionary new platform for protecting, managing and monetizing creative work online.
BK’s very first NFT — entitled “The Hands of Time (#2)” from his Acrylic Alchemy collection — will be both minted and validated as part of UREEQA’s closed beta, and he couldn’t be more fired up about what the platform can do for his creations as well as the work of fellow Creators.
“The Package of Proof that UREEQA produces, Responsibly Minted that’s always there, always written on every transaction — it shows that my idea, I don’t have to be afraid of putting it into the atmosphere anymore,” Kirhagis said of his decision to work with UREEQA. “No matter where it goes, it can be traced back to me. It gives you a level of security in your creations.”
Through the platform’s Responsible Minting process, UREEQA will verify the authenticity of “The Hands of Time (#2)” to give peace of mind to any potential buyers.
Once validated, anyone will be able to see all the validation steps performed on the NFT, and a one-way hash of the work’s Package of Proof will be permanently written to the Ethereum blockchain.
“For a long time,” Kirhagis said, “I’ve almost been waiting for technology to catch up. And I feel like this new renaissance is perfectly suited for me because, although there is an experience being able to see artwork in person and the canvas fibers and the paint strokes, sometimes I feel like if the content is strong enough and the message behind the work [is strong], there can be an experience on a screen or in a digital realm that still leaves an impact.”
A Five-Tool Artist
In fact, BK The Artist has proof of that impact. He’ll never forget receiving an email from a high school senior who told him that simply viewing his work on Instagram taught her more about politics and society than anything she’d taken in school and had inspired her to enter politics.
To BK, a reaction like that not only “shows the power of art” but also “the power of a pixel.”
The rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has delivered new power to pixels, and BK seems destined to thrive in that budding environment just as he has in the tangible art world.
The self-taught Baltimore native grew up a sports fan and tried to develop himself to be versatile along the lines of a five-tool athlete. Not only has he mastered a handful of different styles to such an extent that “sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m the same artist” from one form to the next, but he’s also gained extensive experience in brand work and graphic design.
His father, a retired Baltimore City police sergeant who BK describes as “old-school Greek,” insisted he have a backup plan in case his passion for fine art didn’t pay off. That’s how he wound up in the graphic design program at Hofstra University, where he painted on the side while honing skills that are now likely to come in handy again as a result of the NFT revolution in the art world.
“I’m a Swiss Army knife and I’m always trying to sharpen a new tool,” he said. “And that’s what’s really exciting about this is it opens up a whole new frontier and different ways to think about making new art.”
Influenced most heavily by Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, Kirhagis didn’t leave high school with a fancy portfolio or traditional training and only took painting and art electives at Hofstra. He began freelancing for brands as a graphic designer, but he never took an eye off the prize.
Early on at Hofstra, he noticed that a student gallery had a vacancy and shocked the teachers in charge by asking if he could provide his own exhibit.
“I remember the look on their face,” he said, “because they couldn’t say no because there wasn’t a good reason.”
He used the school’s computer lab to create flyers, distributed them throughout the campus and put on his first art show independently.
Kirhagis has “always believed that if I produced the best work that I could and really put my heart and soul into it that eventually, it would reach the right audience,” but the reality is he also grinded, pushed hard and smartly found a way to merge his corporate work with his passion projects.
In those college days, clients that commissioned him to work on website design, logos and business cards would visit his studio, where his paintings were prominently displayed. They’d inquire about buying original work, and that morphed into BK selling branding identities along with original paintings as a package.
Corporate money dried up when the financial crisis hit in 2007 and 2008 and Kirhagis took it as a sign to shift his focus entirely to his paint work, which soon caught Dash’s attention.
The Roc-A-Fella mogul is famous for his eye for talent, which is why it was a big freakin’ deal when he called BK the next best thing in the art world. Dash’s massive network quickly embraced a young Kirhagis.
“It was like a storm,” he remembered. “I just flooded the game and the right people saw it. I’m always thankful for [Dash] because he kind of put that spotlight on me. But if the work is good enough, it’ll speak and it’ll last.”
“The Hands of Time (#2)” Meets UREEQA
That aforementioned versatility makes it difficult to tightly define BK’s work, but he uses original concepts and the final products are often laced with socially conscious messages.
“My style was really born out of having a scarcity of material,” BK said, “so like a very thin layer of acrylic paint. But it really was an extension of being able to make mistakes and going back at the work and editing it. Almost think of the canvas as like a piece of clay that you’re constantly shaping, constantly sculpting. Once I developed this style, it made me feel like I could paint anything.”
He typically utilizes shape and color to weave together double images and hidden elements to relay narratives and bold statements within his work. The viewer’s mind deciphers several layers while simultaneously interpreting a broader message or story within the same piece.
Altogether, it tends to evoke strong feelings among beholders. And, unsurprisingly, it’s often targeted by counterfeiters.
Art thieves have taken screenshots of BK’s paintings on Instagram, run the copies through image enhancement software, printed them on canvases and sold them without his knowledge. He’s also been shocked to find his art on merchandise like shower curtains and rugs.
“It’s a terrible feeling,” he said, “especially as your following goes up and your network gets bigger and the exposure is bigger. It feels even worse than maybe having a belonging stolen, because it’s a creation.”
He knows that danger still exists in the NFT realm, but with higher stakes. And that’s where UREEQA comes in.
“This whole idea of creating a Package of Proof with Responsible Minting is something that immediately jumped on my radar,” he said. “I could tell that there was such a missing piece to the puzzle as far as this NFT space and what was going on, and it seemed like UREEQA just came in and kind of filled the void. I’m excited to be a part of it.”
According to Kirhagis, “The Hands of Time (#2)”, which will lead the way as part of UREEQA’s closed beta, explores “how time passes and what that means.” He considers it a “perfect representation” of how his “skillset comes together for a certain style.”
It’s a lot to take in, and for most, it requires several studies in order to grasp the many messages and layers embedded within the piece.
“In the end, our life is just this combination of all the minutes, all the weeks, the seconds, the months of our lives and what it stacks up to in the end,” he said in summarizing the creation. “What are you going to do with your time here?”
The NFT-in-the-making originally took BK just under a week to create, a period during which he says he was “in the zone like Tom Brady [going] 27 of 27 with four touchdowns.”
“BK’s work has touched so many art lovers, both in person and online,” UREEQA CEO Harsch Khandelwal said. “His creations are perfect for the NFT space, and this initial contribution to the NFT community is alluring and thought-provoking. We look forward to minting it with our Package of Proof, and we’re excited to see what he’ll have in store for us next.”
The development marks another pivotal partnership for UREEQA’s innovative platform, which had already secured pledged assets from Lifehouse bassist and vocalist Bryce Soderberg, drumming legend Kenny Aronoff, acclaimed Canadian sculptor Dean Drever and Los Angeles-based clothing designer Vapor95, among others, for its ongoing closed beta.
“Before this existed, there was a big gaping hole there,” Kirhagis said. “Now I just feel like once the game catches up and this all gets ironed out, a lot of people are going to be jumping on the bandwagon. … And so for me to have established a relationship with UREEQA knowing where this is going to go, knowing at the beginning how important this is, it’s exciting. It’s something that not only is helpful to me as an artist at building my own brand and protecting me, but it’s something that I believe in.”
And it might only represent the start of a much larger adventure for both UREEQA and BK The Artist, who personally has his sights set on animation, 3D and virtual reality within the NFT sphere, all in an attempt to “touch people in a completely different way.”
“My brain is about to start thinking in ways that it never has before,” he said, “and I don’t even know what that means but I’m excited to find out.”
About UREEQA
The UREEQA platform strives to protect Creators’ work, their rights and their revenue by harnessing the power of blockchain technology.
Established in Canada in 2020, UREEQA will modernize the inefficient and bureaucratic systems currently in place for copyright, patent, industrial design and trademark protection. By building a robust and compelling Package of Proof for source creative work, UREEQA only mints Validated NFTs to represent creative rights. This helps keep buyers safe by giving them confidence that the work they are purchasing was minted by the smart contract approved by the Creator of the work and is therefore authentic.
UREEQA provides value and opportunities for its Creators, Validators and Tokenholders via URQA, the token at the heart of the UREEQA ecosystem.
For more information on UREEQA and upcoming announcements please visit our website UREEQA, join our Telegram channel here, and follow us on Twitter here.
Disclaimer:
Statements in this article, including any statements relating to UREEQA’s future plans and objectives or expected results, may include forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions and are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in technology development and commercialization. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
