“My expectation is to make a fucking jpg and put it on the internet. Period.”
The unlikely hero of the digital age
Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, is the unlikely hero of the digital age. His weird, epic, dystopian images and animations are bursting with political satire – underscored by macabrely entertaining titles like Elon Baby Breastfeeding Himself and Tom Hanks Beats the Shit Out Of Coronavirus. On 1 May 2007, Mike began his seminal project Everydays. He created a jpeg and put it online. Then he did the same thing the next day and the day after. Over 15 years later, he's never missed a day. Comprising more than 6000 artworks, Everydays is now a landmark in the history of digital art. Not only did the pr...
Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, is the unlikely hero of the digital age. His weird, epic, dystopian images and animations are bursting with political satire – underscored by macabrely entertaining titles like Elon Baby Breastfeeding Himself and Tom Hanks Beats the Shit Out Of Coronavirus. On 1 May 2007, Mike began his seminal project Everydays. He created a jpeg and put it online. Then he did the same thing the next day and the day after. Over 15 years later, he's never missed a day. Comprising more than 6000 artworks, Everydays is now a landmark in the history of digital art. Not only did the project’s first 5000 instalments become the first purely digital work Christie's ever sold, realising a mammoth $69,346,250 at auction in 2021, but it also helped establish the everyday as a movement within digital culture – a practice that many artists have since adopted.
Although Beeple is now one of the most successful living artists in the world, like most innovators, he started out in a very different position. In the early 2000s he was a computer science student at Purdue University and experimented with making films in his spare time. He soon realised the medium wasn't for him: "I did not like any aspect of shooting things live because I did not have control over it. So I realised that I actually really like working on the computer because I had complete control." Keen to get his work out there, Mike started making visuals for bands and musicians which he gave out for free. His VJ loops soon gained traction, catapulting him into collaborations with the likes of Justin Bieber, Wiz Khalifa and Nicki Minaj. Beneath broken records and A-list names is the deep respect Mike holds for artists and fans in the digital community. His work is masterful, authentic and enthralling. The wild world of Beeple is a perfect mirror for our own.
Bio
Mike Winkelmann was born in 1981 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Today, he works from his home in Charleston, South Carolina, where he lives with his wife and two children. His parents and brother also live nearby.
Where it all began
“Getting a computer and seeing the possibilities there was just such a huge, mind-expanding thing for me as a kid.”
Did you know?
The name Beeple is taken from a 1980s toy of the same name. The toy looks like a yeti, and could easily be a character from one of Mike’s artworks.
