Osinachi (digital artist)

Prince Jacon “Osinachi” Igwe (born 1991) is a Nigerian visual artist and non-fungible token creator. He is known for using MS Word as his medium. He is the Chief Creative Officer for SocialStack, a social token protocol on Ethereum and Celo. He launched his own social currency $OSINA. He has been described as “Africa’s foremost crypto artist.”

Career

Osinachi was born in Aba, Nigeria. He studied Library and Information Science and English and Literary Studies and worked as an academic librarian at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Osinachi entered the crypto art scene in 2017. He is the first African to showcase artworks at the Ethereal Summit in New York. In 2020, he held his debut solo show, “Osinachi: Existence as Protest,” at the Kate Vasse Galerie in Zurich. In 2021, Osinachi garnered attention for selling $75,000 worth of NFTs in 10 days.

Osinachi partnered with the Mohamed Amin Foundation to release NFTs for a catalogue featuring 2.5 million photographs and more than 5,000 hours of video content. The project launched $Afrofuture, an Ethereum-based social currency.

Osinachi’s work has been described as “engagingly political, drawing from conversations on gender, tradition, and race.” Writing about the art market in 2020, curator Jason Bailey called Osinachi “the best of what the coming generation of artists have to offer.” He wrote: “Osinachi’s work stands out in part because he is self-taught and creates his work using Microsoft Word, a common word processing tool few would ever think to use for making art. His signature use of color and pattern create sophisticated compositions that are dynamic, but flat like a collage, unusual for artists working digitally. His work is bold, distinct, authentic, sincere, and addresses his generation’s desire for equality, diversity, and environmentalism in a way that is direct without being too on the nose.”