Sommelier NFT Awards - May 18th, 2021

With the launch of our Sommelier Uniswap v3 Liquidity Provider Application for retail LPs, we wanted to celebrate this amazing milestone with our community in a special way! To do this, Sommelier will launch it’s own NFT collectibles and unveil their novel use case within the Sommelier ecosystem.

Explaining the #NFTdrop

Sommelier NFT Art is a digital art series of collectibles by leading artists from around the world. Our NFT artwork holders will have exclusive access to the following benefits:

• #LPREWARDS: NFT artwork holders will automatically be included in all #LPREWARDS offered by Sommelier partners to the Sommelier community. When any Sommelier partners reward our Sommeliers, the NFT artwork holders will participate in the reward distributions.

• Early Access: NFT artwork holders will get early access to new Sommelier features for testing and use. Anyone who possesses these NFTs will be able to use and enjoy the latest Sommelier features not yet released to the public.

• Product Impact: NFT artwork holders will be able to weigh and recommend new Sommelier product features to the product team. Sommelier will welcome new ideas and concepts from token holders so that we can continue to improve the Sommelier experience.

Sommelier’s launch of our NFTs mark a novel NFT use case within the DeFi and Digital Artwork Community where we get to give back to the members that continue to make our platform a success.

The Artwork will be dropped to the 3 most active Sommeliers on May 18th, 2021, in the following categories that have interacted with all Sommelier smart contracts since March 10, 2021:

• The Hunter - Has the most active positions across Uniswap pairs (Transactions)

• The Collector - Longest holding position in any Uniswap pair (Time)

• The Unicorn - Most Liquidity Added (Volume)

Each category will have a unique Sommelier as winner that will be selected from an Ethereum address that has interacted with Sommelier’s mainnet Ethereum contracts. We will only be able to choose ONE Ethereum address that fits the performance measurements above and we will not be able to verify identities or ownership of the addresses.

The Artists

Our team collaborated with various artists that have a strong global following to create the NFT artworks. All artworks will have a similar theme but offer a unique artistic style and interpretation per artist. Here is the list of our first artists and their commissions for our Sommelier community of Liquidity Providers.

Jacolby Satterwhite (Commission: The Hunter)

b. 1986, Columbia, SC
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Jacolby Satterwhite is celebrated for a conceptual practice addressing crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality and fantasy through immersive installation, virtual reality and digital media. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film of real and imagined worlds populated by the avatars of artists and friends. These animations serve as the stage on which the artist synthesizes the multiple disciplines that encompass his practice, namely illustration, performance, painting, sculpture, photography and writing. Satterwhite draws from an extensive set of references, guided by queer theory, modernism and video game language to challenge conventions of Western art through a personal and political lens. An equally significant influence is that of his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose ethereal vocals and diagrams for visionary household products and ethereal vocals serve as the source material within a decidedly complex structure of memory and mythology.

Jacolby Satterwhite was born in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions both in the United States and in Europe, including most recently at Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia (2019); Pioneer Works, New York (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Public Art Fund, New York (2017); San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco (2017); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017). He was awarded the United States Artist Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellowship in 2016. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. In 2019, Satterwhite collaborated with Solange Knowles on her visual album, “When I Get Home.”

Cayetano Ferrer (Commission: The Collector)

b. 1981, Los Angeles, CA

Cayetano Ferrer, Los Angeles-based video, sculpture, and installation artist, takes the stuff of everyday life—carpets, street signs, cardboard boxes—and reconstructs these materials into visually jarring configurations. The artist’s impossibly broad base of work extends from distorted architectural elements like marble and elaborate moldings to an on-site manipulation of a Hollywood billboard. Recent solo shows include: Memory Screen, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, 2019; Demaster, Southard Reid, London, 2018; Anamorphosis, Podium, Oslo, 2018; Tropos, Faena, Buenos Aires, 2017; Composite Arcade, Château Shatto, Los Angeles, 2014; Vibe Compression, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles, 2013; and Forced Perspective, Mayerei, Karlsruhe, 2010. Recent group shows include: The St. Petersburg Paradox, Swiss Institute, New York, 2013; and Made in LA, Hammer Museum at The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 2012.

Petra Cortright (Commission: The Unicorn)

b. 1986, Los Angeles, CA

Petra Cortright was born in Santa Barbara in 1986 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Considered one of the foremost artists of the ‘Net Art’ and ‘Post Internet’ movements, Cortright is known for her digitally conceived artworks that exist in many forms including YouTube videos, digital paintings, as well as projections and prints on archival and metallic surfaces. Her multifaceted work presents a critical examination and questioning of the dawn of technology and its profound effects on aesthetics, culture and society.

In her early work, Cortright recorded herself performing simple gestures and frequently employed ‘selfie’ filters or effects before uploading her videos to YouTube. Cortright’s videos have been subject to much critical debate and have since secured her collaborations with many creatives, including the fashion designer Stella McCartney. Solely created and experienced via the medium of the internet, Cortright’s early work shares affinities with the ‘Net Art’ movement, a political landmark in Internet art history whose precursors include the international Fluxus and Avant-Pop movements.

Cortright later combined digital innovations with traditional techniques to craft digital paintings. Often simulating brushwork and figurative forms through digital software, Cortright has unveiled how digital strategies can be used to create objects that exist in the real world, subsequently securing her a central role in the ‘Post Internet’ movement.

To create her intricate paintings, Cortright embarks on a process of which she describes as ‘breaking down photography’. Cortright garners images from sources such as Pinterest and Google Images to create a digital file. She later manipulates these images on Photoshop by layering them on top of one another. These layers are later transferred onto substrates such as aluminum, linen, paper and acrylic sheets through industrial print processes. The results are expressive floral paintings that bear semblance to Impressionist and Abstract artworks, invoking a unique fusion of impersonal mass production and personal gesture.

As an artist who takes on the role of painter, graphic designer, editor and producer, Cortright has created an immensely rich and diverse body of work to date. From the performative and digital to the painterly and tangible, Cortright’s artworks critically engage with a wider dialogue concerning performative cultures of online consumption, connectivity, fabrication and multimediality.

The Commission and the Art

There will be a total of 3 unique artworks minted, which means each individual NFT will be minted only once, making them a truly unique piece of digital art. All artworks will have a different theme and offer a unique artistic style and interpretation per artist.

The Hunter

The Hunter is a Sommelier Liquidity Provider who will pursue liquidity pairs when many have given up. They are active on Sommelier with the most transactions on our Sommelier liquidity contracts. The Sommelier hunter has the insider knowledge and is willing to use multiple tools to win the prize of increased DeFi profits.

The Collector

The Collector is a Sommelier that takes a position to add liquidity because they are confident of the narrative of the pool and the organization running it. The Collector does not invest without deep research and has either engaged in our AMAs or has reviewed the project founders and their motives. Their pools perform well because they support serious projects

The Unicorn

The Unicorn Sommelier holds the largest Uniswap pair positions. They have identified substantial Liquidity Provider positions for profit and they make bold decisions. The Unicorn Sommelier is a rare find and as an inspiration to other Sommelier users.

Qualifications #NFTDrop for selection

The recipients of these Sommelier awards will be selected from Sommelier LP contract transactions tracked between March 10, 2021 and May 10, 2021. All Sommelier users qualify to participate, excluding members of Sommeliers team.

#NFTDrop Awards Day

We will host a 30-minute NFT awards day event on May 18, 2021 at 10AM PT. The event agenda will be as follows:

• Sommelier Artists and #NFT Commissions

• Unveiling of the Sommelier NFTs

• Announcement of the winning addresses

Beyond our Univ3 launch

Sommelier NFT Art is our first approach at boosting the social and financial value of the Sommelier network through collectibles. We will continue to expand on this NFT collection through new collaborations with globally renowned Artists. Our team will be developing new utility and feature sets for our NFT collection that will expand our App and protocol’s use case and offer users new ways to maximize their LP returns.

Want to work on the Sommelier protocol? We’re hiring! Check out our evolving jobs page now online here: https://sommelier.finance/jobs This page is actively changing so reach out to us if you don’t see the position you would fit.

In the interim, follow our Twitter, or contact us on Telegram and Discord to contribute to Sommelier’s development.