The Artist Program: For Artists, by Artists
Nouns funded the Artist Program — a bold initiative to empower artists across the world to mint onchain works under a shared CC0 collection.
Details
The mission was simple: bring new creators into the Nounish ecosystem, support artists and the public domain, and experiment with a voting model where artists were able to select future grant recipients.
Over the course of five open rounds, the program inducted 100 artists, each receiving a small grant to create and mint one piece of CC0 artwork to the Artist Program collection.
A Year of Creation and Connection
From Argentina to Nigeria, Turkey to Canada, artists from around the globe joined the experiment — producing 98 unique works of art, all now permanently recorded onchain. These pieces range from digital paintings and music to animation, sculpture, and mixed media — a snapshot of global creativity.
Many participating artists have since become active contributors within Nouns Rounds, Flows, and related projects, with several ongoing collaborations emerging from connections made during the program.
The Artist Program didn’t just fund artists — it built a network of new builders and thinkers aligned with the spirit of open creation.
Nounish Art, Onchain Forever
The final collection lives on Zora, where mint proceeds were split between artists, collaborators, and Nouns DAO via the Nouns OP Stack address — ensuring that the art directly contributes back to the ecosystem that funded it.
A random selection of works from the collection:
Gnome and Lint, by BrettDraws (Animation)
This is Not A Game You Can Start in MS-Dos Mode, by Demon Ego (Illustration, Mixed Media)
We Can All Be Nouns, by Annabella (Stop Motion)
DREAMING OF YOU <3, by Kiddo (Illustration)
Beyond the Nouns – Kai & Ocean Dream, by Bungsafar (Children’s Picture Book)
One Clean Kitty, by Bananakin (Animation)
Memorarius Custos, by Woorm (Animation)
Mind streams of awareness, by Gonz (Glitch Art)
Explore all of the artists who participated in the program here: artistprogram.org/artists
Building the Bridge Between Art and Onchain Culture
Beyond the mints, the team helped bring Nouns to the real world — distributing flyers at major events like ETH Denver, ETH Paris, and Art Basel, and even printing physical copies of selected works such as Bungsafar’s Beyond the Nouns book.
The program concluded with a live community call hosting about 40 attendees for a “Nouns 101” artist onboarding session, introducing participants to DAO governance, proposal creation, and collaborative funding opportunities. Many of these attendees continue to stay active in the broader ecosystem today.
Full presentation can be found here.
A Global Collective, Curated by Artists
One of the most unique aspects of the Artist Program was its governance model — each round’s selections were voted on by the artists themselves. By the final round, over 80 artists had voting power, forming an early prototype of a decentralized art council.
This experiment in peer curation created a sense of shared ownership and trust that extended beyond the grants — proving that artists can collectively shape the future of public goods funding in creative communities.
The Artist Program stands as one of the most inclusive art initiatives funded by Nouns. It supported artists at every level of experience, helped them onboard into Web3, and minted a permanent record of creativity under the Nouns banner.
Each artwork tells its own story, but together they form something larger — a mosaic of global imagination, united under CC0.
Dates and Funding Details
Proposal 488 was proposed Jan. 23, 2024 for a total of 40 ETH (30 ETH for artists, 10 ETH for the team). Rounds were run each month for five months between March and July of 2024.
The program is currently paused.
About the Team
The Artist Program was founded and directed by Mike Good, SQX, Cardno, Index and Pipe. More info on the project can be found on the project website, artistprogram.org, X.com, Farcaster, or Instagram.
Nouns Funds Art
Even though the Artist Program is currently paused, that doesn’t mean Nouns hasn’t funded a ton of new art projects and initiatives since. Head over to Nouns.Camp to check out active proposals and see what Nouns is funding today. If you’re interested in supporting the arts, consider joining Nouns: An infinite work of art that supports artists, builders and dreamers.