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IX Shells

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Panamanian generative artist Itzel Yard, who made Dreaming at Dusk for the Tor Project and has sold work at Sotheby's and Christie's. Full biography
Sales volume
— sales
Artworks153
Collectors59
Active loans

Catalogue

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Collectors

About

Dreaming at Dusk by IX Shells
Dreaming at Dusk, 2021

About IX Shells

IX Shells is the name the Panamanian artist Itzel Yard uses for her generative work. She studied architectural technology in Canada, later moved to computer science, and began experimenting with generative art there before returning to Panama in 2019, where she lives and works. Her code-based pieces often start from sounds she records and photographs she takes on walks in Panama City.

In May 2021 the Tor Project auctioned Dreaming at Dusk, which it had commissioned from her. The generative piece is derived from the private key of Dusk, the first onion service. After a day of bidding the collective PleasrDAO bought it, and the proceeds went to Tor. Fortune named her to its NFTy 50 that year.

In 2022 Sotheby's New York sold her Beyond Recognition in a generative art sale, and Christie's New York sold her video Thalamic Pulse in Cartography of the Mind, an auction for MAPS, which studies psychedelic therapies. The same year she gave her looped video Bend to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. In 2023 she designed the cover of Fortune's April/May issue.

No Me Olvides, made with her long-time collaborator Rosendo Merel Choy, turns archives of nineteenth-century women artists into generative compositions. Fellowship and ARTXCODE showed it as a solo presentation in the Zero 10 sector of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2025.

Notable works

  1. Dreaming at Dusk by IX Shells
    Dreaming at Dusk2021
  2. Nested dark grey rectangles and vertical bars, like a receding corridor, on a grainy black ground
    Beyond Recognition2022 · Sotheby's
  3. A tall column of translucent mauve and cream wave shapes crossed by fine horizontal lines on black
    Thalamic Pulse2022 · Christie's
  4. A shadowy figure emerging from tightly packed white horizontal lines on black
    Bend2022
  5. No Me Olvides, made with Rosendo Merel Choy by IX Shells
    No Me Olvides, made with Rosendo Merel Choy2025

In museum collections

  • Buffalo AKG Art MuseumBuffalo, NY · 2022
    Bend (2022), a 45-second looped video, gift of the artist
    A shadowy figure emerging from tightly packed white horizontal lines on black
    Source

Top sales

  1. Dreaming at Dusk, sold by the Tor Project to PleasrDAO by IX Shells
    Dreaming at Dusk, sold by the Tor Project to PleasrDAO2021
    500 ETH (about $2.04M)
  2. Nested dark grey rectangles and vertical bars, like a receding corridor, on a grainy black ground
    Beyond Recognition, sold with a signed giclée printSotheby's · 2022
    $189,000
  3. A tall column of translucent mauve and cream wave shapes crossed by fine horizontal lines on black
    Thalamic Pulse, sold to benefit MAPSChristie's · 2022
    $100,800
  4. Translucent golden wireframe boxes floating over a violet to pink gradient
    IDWT2024
    2 ETH (about $6,020)
  5. Something Forbidden (Hanna Hirsch-Pauli), from No Me Olvides by IX Shells
    Something Forbidden (Hanna Hirsch-Pauli), from No Me Olvides2026
    1.19 WETH (about $3,510)
  6. Context Spill (Berta Wegman), from No Me Olvides by IX Shells
    Context Spill (Berta Wegman), from No Me Olvides2026
    1.13 WETH (about $3,490)

Exhibitions

  1. 2025
    No Me Olvides, a solo presentation of her work with Fellowship and ARTXCODE in the Zero 10 sectorArt Basel Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL
  2. 2022
    Cartography of the Mind, with Thalamic Pulse on view during the saleChristie's, New York, NY

Recognition

  1. 2021
    NFTy 50, No. 11Fortune

Collaborations

  1. 2025
    No Me Olvides, made with her long-time collaborator Rosendo Merel Choy
  2. 2022
    Thalamic Pulse, given to Cartography of the Mind to benefit MAPSMAPS
  3. 2021
    Dreaming at Dusk, made for the Tor Project from the key of its first onion serviceThe Tor Project

Press & resources

  1. How Itzel Yard overcame shyness and trauma to become IX Shells, one of the world's most popular NFT artistsFortune · 2023
  2. Dreaming at Dusk: the Tor Project's NFT Auction & What's NextThe Tor Project · 2021
  3. Tor Project auctions off the first Onion URL ever created as an NFTBleepingComputer · 2021

Milestones

  1. 2019
    Returns to Panama from Canada, where she began making generative art
  2. 2021
    The Tor Project commissions Dreaming at Dusk, which PleasrDAO buys after a day of bidding
  3. 2022
    Sotheby's New York sells Beyond Recognition in its generative art saleSotheby's
  4. 2022
    Gives Bend to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum
  5. 2023
    Designs the cover of Fortune's April/May 2023 issueFortune
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