Galy - The 3D Artist Taking the World by Storm
Written by Sarah Doar
Galy is one of this year’s most talked-about artists. A self-taught prodigy in the field of 3D art and animation, he has made a name for himself creating nostalgic digital sculptures with themes inspired by a money-obsessed society. Curious about painting and drawing from a young age, Galy began experimenting with 3D design when he was just 12 years old. Using the Internet as a teacher during a time when influencer tutorials had not yet saturated YouTube, his fascination with the work of Walt Disney and modern animated classics like Toy Story, motivated him to explore the creative process of digital sculpting on his own.
“I love the painting process. Modeling is important but when it comes to painting, you can show and express what you feel with the colors and saturations. (For this reason) I will never do anything in black and white.”
Much of Galy’s work is the amalgamation of early cartoon classics and Galy’s own storytelling. They are created based on memories from the artist’s earliest fascinations. “I would build a fantasy world from toys and action figures. I never liked minimalism, I liked big worlds filled with life and characters. My favorite movie was Toy Story, I would watch it every day. You could say that I became a 3D artist because of Toy Story.”
An intuitive autodidact, Galy eventually trained himself on Cinema 4D and later, Maya, and began designing promotional artwork and flyers that he sold for around $15 each. Deliberately setting the groundwork for a freelance career in 3D design, growing success enabled him to open his design studio, Fuzion, in 2016.
While establishing the business was not without its challenges, Galy has expressed that throughout everything, 3D art is the place where he can show his heart. He prefers the artistic, creative process over the technical, more laborious aspects of digital sculpting, like retopology.
The expansion of his design studio served as an unexpected inspiration for the subject of Galy’s personal work. His most widely lauded pieces are those which both personify and satirize the theme of money and the transactional reality of life in modern society.
“Behind everything there is money,” Galy says of his work’s symbolism. “Money is moving the world, even in places we don’t expect. People change because of money, make decisions based on money. People do the worst but also the most amazing things, all because of money.”
Artists and celebrities have begun to express their enthusiasm for Galy’s art. His most recent collaborations with rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and singer Justin Bieber saw him designing original animations for their personal brands. Galy’s work can be seen in the album art, single cover art, and concert art design for Boogie’s album ‘A Boogie vs. Artist’ as well as in the branding of Bieber’s apparel company, Drew.
Today, Galy’s work continues to evolve in the style of his latest pieces, depicting a darker, avant-garde version of an imagined universe. Most recently, Galy’s NFT collaboration with Steve Aoki sold for over $214,000 at Sotheby’s; one of the first-ever NFTs to be sold on the famous art and luxury marketplace.
An NFT (nonfungible token) is a file containing an asset such as a piece of art, music, short film, etc. Nowadays NFTs are mainly being used to trade digital art as nonfungible assets. There is currently a project in the works for Galy to launch his own independent collection of NFTs. Named “GalyMonsters”, Galy’s original animations will be available to purchase within his digital world, aptly named “Galyverse”.
Within Galyverse, each of the 10 GalyMonsters is designed as a unique NFT. The NFTs are purchased in a booster (bundle), with 1 bundle containing 3 NFTs. In the Galyverse, NFTs have different rarities. The concept is that when someone purchases a bundle, it is randomly generated for them on the spot, making it possible to receive a mixture of NFTs from 5 different rarities. The project is expected to launch in Winter 2021. At 27, Galy is the youngest artist ever to sign with Eden Gallery. As part of Eden Gallery’s family of exclusive artists, he joins the ranks of contemporary painters and sculptors like Alec Monopoly, David Kracov, and Dorit Levinstein. Galy art will be displayed at Art Basel Week 2021 in Miami, in addition to Eden Gallery locations worldwide.