ISAAC WRIGHT’S foray into the world of Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs) is a direct result of his pain derived from his unique perspective which has been turned into his ultimate purpose.
An exemplary record of achievement throughout school gave Wright the opportunity to join the army aged 18.
Little did he know then however, that his time serving his country would shape his future in ways far beyond his imagination.
Determined to replicate the standards he had set for himself up until that point, Wright’s stint as a Chaplains Assistant in the army was cut short when he suffered an injury following a parachute jump.
It was a role he had taken very seriously.
“I was never really creative growing up, never really creative as an adult but I was in the army from 2014 until 2020. I retired in April 2020.
“My first four years were in special operations and my last two years were in a light infantry unit.”
Wright, 26, says having adapted well to his roles, he began experiencing difficulties in 2018.
“What I didn’t know then, was that it was going to get harder,” he shared.
“I definitely felt lost in the military at that time. When I came into the military, I was very much just another kid that needed to make ends meet and wanted to be out on his own. Not unlike many other minorities in the United States that turn to the military for a good career path, for stability and stuff like that, that was definitely me when I was 18.
“I accelerated really fast, I did really well in the army and after four years I was promoted to staff sergeant and that’s where I found myself in 2018, but I was beginning to become very uncomfortable with my identity as a conscious black man in America while also simultaneously sacrificing and giving so much of myself to the army and to the armed forces, because I did not feel like America’s treatment of minorities, specifically black men and women, was, or is adequate to this day.
“I felt like, why am I going to fight wars or put my life in danger or live through traumatic experiences, when that happens every single day just being a black person in America.”
Wright admits his conflicting feelings, coupled with the heavy responsibility as a Chaplains Assistant, which saw him helping his fellow soldiers with every issue they had from mental health, emotional issues, family issues as well as dealing with the loss of unit soldiers, was a bit too much weight to bear.
At any one-time Wright said he could be overseeing ten to twenty suicidal soldiers, with his office a revolving door to soldiers from any rank.
“It was my job to reach out to them, to get resources for them, to make sure they were OK. I did that and took that very seriously, never in my career was my job so important as then and there,” Wright reflected.
Upon leaving the army, Wright admits he found it difficult to find solace in the everyday solutions he had been given to deal with his officially diagnosed condition of PTSD.
But finding art changed all of that.
Having purchased a camera four years ago, Wright tells the Voice that through pictures, he found a medium of expression that brought him the much needed feeling of balance.
It wasn’t just about the photos though. Viewing the world through a militarily refined lens as he had done for the best part of his adult life had given Wright a unique perspective. Sharing images of his happy place with the world, allowed him to give others a snapshot of just how skewered but alluring that view can be.
He explains: “The first time I shot (on my camera) was in 2018 and that was a month after I had just got to the new unit.
“I was already having a hard time adjusting to life there, I didn’t know that that summer we’d lose three soldiers to suicide, I would start going to therapy myself and that I would progressively grow, consciously understanding my own history as a black man, with more and more unrest in regard to where I was in the military at that time.
“But one night in May, 2018, I remember it like it was yesterday, I was lying awake at night and something just told me, drive to Houston and take your camera.
“I’d barely even shot any photos on it. I picked it up, drove for three hours and I ended up climbing a construction site that night, sitting fifty stories above the city, watching the city. Nothing malicious, just literally wanted to see the world.
“I remember feeling very at peace. One hundred per cent at peace with myself, it felt so transformative and so I took a few photos, but they have always been an afterthought.
“Moreso at the forefront, is finding my peace. I’ll never forget that feeling.”
His work, comprises of views from across America that will blow your mind, and is available to view on social media under his handle @DrifterShoots, and is also currently the second best-selling photography collection in the NFT space.
Wright admits that finding the emerging technology which allows him to go direct to consumer with no middleman, changed his life, sharing his art with the world however, has landed him in a lot of trouble.
A year ago, he was locked up in an Ohio prison.
“Urban exploring work and it involving trespass is no mystery to the world. But the parallels that are so interesting about my story is the fact that there are next to no black Urban Explorers in the community.
“You combine that with my military background, serving in special operations and being specially trained and having gone through special courses, that’s nightmare fuel for America.
“In the hands of the wrong people, ie the detective on my case, that can be weaponised against you.
“I had to sit in open court and listen to people who have never served, use my military background against me and I’m an honourably retired veteran.”
Explaining how he’d come to be in court and subsequently imprisoned, Wright says he’d gone on a climb in December 2020 in his home city of Ohio, the police were called to the venue where he’d taken photos, but he’d already left the premises.
Three weeks later, having tracked him down from CCTV footage and identified him from his car registration number plate, Wright was arrested.
While understandable that what Wright was doing was cause for deep consternation, being met with the full force of the law, has left an indelible on him.
“When they put out a nationwide warrant for me it didn’t say I was wanted for trespassing,” Wright points out.
“It said I was wanted for armed robbery. Now, this is with no weapon, no criminal background.”
Arrested at gun point by multiple officers in a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in TV show ‘Police, Camera, Action, Wright was thrown behind bars, locked up for 23 hours a day, with no bail offered because they had put out a fugitive warrant for his arrest.
It was four weeks before Wright even knew what he was being charged with.
It wasn’t until he was transferred to another prison facility in his hometown after two months that he realised the extent to which he says the police had gone to in order to besmirch his name. He believes it was a meticulous campaign to sully his character.
Detectives had lined up case after case for him to fight based on images he allegedly took in different states and although he’d eventually win his first one, battling took it’s financial toll.
In one instance Wright says he will never forget, bond was posted up as a staggering $400,000 based on the information ‘they didn’t know about’ him.
“I sat in that court room, young, black, six years given to the country, having been deployed, having lost friends, having gone to memorial services, having watched mothers weep over their children and all of this is playing back in my head, all the time you give to the military.
“I sat their listening to all of the white people in power, lawyers, judges, prosecution, everyone in the court room white, except for me, using my honourable military service against me. And the judge used it to justify a $400,000 bond.
“I didn’t have that money, my family was a low income family. At that point I thought I could be in here for the whole year.
“Not long after that the New York Times got hold of my story.”
Wright’s spirit and pursuit of freedom never wavered while he was locked up. Every day, he would use the little money he had to call people and tell them his story.
Deep in his heart, he knew this was all happening for a reason.
Three months later he was out. The judge had lowered the bond and he was free to go but that didn’t offset some of the charges from other states that were lining up and he still had to pay for the lawyer fees.
He didn’t know how he was going to pay each of them (he had a different lawyer for each state he was being charged in) but he knew he would find the means.
“A that point I said to myself, I set out to be an artist, I am going to be an artist. I’m not going to quit now because I am at rock bottom, I had like seven or eight thousand dollars to my name.
“That’s where I found the NFT space. I saw a bunch of people selling NFTs and thought, Hmmm, this only makes sense.
“I have unconventional work, good work, great work, spectacular work. It’s work that the world needs to see but what I need to do is cut out the middleman to where no one can say that’s not fine art or it’s not whatever.
“I was like, no, if I can tell my story, if I can raise an army of supporters, If I can find the art collectors out here, then I can do it, I can make it out here. I can get paid, I can pay my lawyers, I can be completely self-sufficient, autonomous, don’t need anyone else’s help.
“That was music to my ears because I came out rock bottom and that was the best place to be.
“August 5th was the day my life changed forever.”
That was the day Wright minted his first set of NFTs.
He put out the first 50 images from his globally renowned Where My Vans Go collection each one priced at $800 with a ten per cent secondary market royalty.
The floor price of those genesis images is now at $150,000.
Since his collection went live his primary sales to date have seen him earn over two million dollars.
His long-term goals are to set his family up financially, his father already owns an NFT worth half a million dollars and he is encouraging his wider family members to get involved.
This week while Wright was in the UK he was invited to exhibit at Sotheby’s for their“Natively Digital project,” a hybrid exhibition and auction of both NFTs and physical work.
“My collection, Where My Vans Go, as of right now, is 119 shots that will cap at 125.
“They are shots that are taken from different perspectives, typically high above cities, bridges places that people never see and never go to and it’s pictures of my Vans, putting the first-person perspective there for everybody else to see what it would look like to stand in my shoes.
“To me, Where My Vans Go is more than a collection, it’s a documentation of my journey, not only of finding and healing myself, but everywhere it has taken me.
“In the army, before incarceration after incarceration, all of it.”
Whatever It Takes (Where My Vans Go #119) sold for £201,600 this week.
Lot 418, depicted Wright’s signature Vans, and the latest drop means there will only ever be six more to come.
“It’s a huge deal for me, obviously it’s a huge deal for any artist to be in Sotheby’s but especially me being the youngest African American photographer to ever be a part of Sotheby’s, it’s a huge honour, especially when you think about where I was last year and where I am now.”
Wright added: “I’m an Urban Exploring Photographer, meaning I explore the world from all different types of unforeseen perspectives. Whether it’s rooftops or bridges or tunnels, it’s really places that are off limits to society that I photograph or intend to photograph and that’s where I find my peace at.”
Many people die by putting themselves in danger for the sake of a selfie. One estimate put the number of deaths at 379, between 2008 and 2021.
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