Chromie squiggle #2394

On-chain algorithm, NFT, and Ethereum blockchain, 2020
Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, by exchange, 2025.18

Artist and technologist Erick Calderon, known as Snowfro, created Chromie Squiggles, a vibrant, playful series of 10,000 unique works that depict a flowing line of color gradients. All share the same visual language but are distinct from one another. Some Squiggles have rarer traits, like single-color or full-spectrum patterns or varying designs like “bold” or “slinky.” Every piece reflects Snowfro’s vision of joy and simplicity in digital art.

Chromie Squiggles introduced a process known as “long-form generative art,” in which the artist crafts an algorithm capable of producing a near-infinite number of unique outputs. Like the Autoglyph series (on view nearby), the works are generated at the moment they’re minted. Not even the artist knows exactly what each piece will look like in advance. This process requires the artist to think deeply about how the code behaves across a large number of potential outputs to ensure every possible result is both unique and visually interesting.