Frauds Keep Selling This South Korean Artist’s Surrealist Erotica as Scam NFTs
Every morning, Joyce Lee says, she is afraid to check her Instagram DMs “because I might read from someone that my art was stolen again. This kind of art theft will never disappear as long as I keep creating art.”
While most of us have been baffled by what, exactly, NFTs are, for South Korean artist Joyce Lee, the rise of non-fungible tokens has been less a mystery than a threat. Over the past several months, her works of bubblegum-fantasy-pop-surrealist-erotica has been repeatedly stolen by NFT scammers who snatch screengrabs, alter them to some degree, then attempt to pawn them off as their own. Now she’s engaged in what is tantamount to an ongoing game of digital whack-a-mole.
“Almost every day I receive direct messages from my followers notifying me that my artwork was used or monetized without my consent,” Lee explained via email from Seoul, where she’s currently exhibiting at Moowoosoo Gallery. “In most cases, I tell them to just forget about it and ignore them because I don't want to waste my time fighting with people online. Reacting to each case is too stressful.”