PROTO LOGUE
Before the marketplaces matured,
before the interfaces became polished,
there were artists minting in the dark—
hopeful, experimental, brave.
This exhibition is a record of that beginning.
A constellation of works collected in the early NFT era,
when Tezos was a gathering place
and Clubhouse was our living room.
We learned crypto together.
We asked naive questions without shame.
We cheered for each other’s first mints.
Nothing was priced “correctly.”
Everything was priced honestly.
From thousands of artworks collected
over four years,
these 250+ monochrome pieces from 80+ artists form
a whispering chorus—
shadows, contrasts, gestures stripped to their essence.
As a collector, they moved me.
As a curator, they became a story.
This is PROTO.logue.
The beginning, again.
Digital + Physical
PROTO.logue is a digital-first gallery dedicated to presenting, preserving, and contextualizing contemporary digital art.
Our mission is to celebrate the artists, collectors, platforms, and global communities that reshaped creative practice through Web3 and emerging technologies.
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We champion work that is experimental, boundary-breaking, and historically significant. We believe in supporting artists across all stages of their careers and honoring the ecosystems where digital art first flourished—from blockchain marketplaces to collaborative online spaces.
PROTO.logue exists to archive the past, illuminate the present, and encourage new forms of creation that push the medium forward. Our exhibitions reflect not only aesthetics, but lineage, process, and the shared learning that built digital culture.
Every show begins with a question.
Every exhibition is a beginning.
Every beginning is a prologue.
COLLECTED
Inaugural Exhibit
Since late 2020, Sondra Bernstein has collected more than 5,000 works of digital art across an expanding and ever-shifting ecosystem—from early Tezos mints to discoveries on platforms such as ZeroOne, Rodeo, Objkt, Revel, Foundation, and OpenSea, among many others. Each platform helped shape a distinct moment in the evolution of digital art, offering its own approach to editions, auctions, and the cadence of creation. Artists experimented freely with one-of-ones, limited editions, open editions, timed drops, Dutch auctions, and surprise free releases—moments that felt like small holidays within the community. Every format carried a different kind of energy; every release held its own story.
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COLLECTED, the inaugural exhibition of PROTO.logue, brings together approximately 225 works from this much larger archive. The selected pieces are primarily black-and-white or monochrome—works that have long served as anchors within Bernstein’s collection. With color stripped away, what remains is essence: form, line, shadow, emotion, and intent. As a curator, Bernstein positions these works as a quiet but powerful narrative of the early digital art renaissance—marked by rawness, experimentation, generosity, and the shared uncertainty of stepping into new territory.
This exhibition is not the full story.
It is only the beginning.
Like any true prologue, it sets the tone for what follows.
PROTO.logue exists because artists took risks.
COLLECTED exists because Bernstein chose to remember—and to share.
This is only Chapter One.
CREATED
Inaugural Exhibit
CREATED
CREATED is the visual language of Proto.Logue—where ideas move from inquiry into form. Using AI as a creative partner, I work through play, intuition, and curation, shaping thousands of generated moments into images that reflect instability, imagination, and transformation. Creation here is not fixed or finished; it is a living process of becoming.
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FOOD
FOOD is creation made tangible. It translates seasonality, memory, and place into an evolving expression—one that mirrors the same curiosity and experimentation found in the art. Ingredients are treated as materials, recipes as frameworks, and the plate as a moment of interpretation rather than repetition.
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SPACE
SPACE is the container for exchange. It is designed to shift between gallery, gathering place, and quiet observation—allowing art, food, and people to coexist without rigid boundaries. The environment is intentionally fluid, inviting discovery rather than instruction.
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EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE is where everything converges. It unfolds slowly, shaped by movement, conversation, and attention. Nothing is fixed; everything responds. Proto.Logue invites guests into a state of curiosity—where creation, consumption, and perception are part of the same continuous dialogue.
About Sondra AKA 4everKurious.
Sondra Bernstein, known in the digital art world as 4everKurious, brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her work as both an artist and curator. After a long and influential career in hospitality—most notably as the founder of the girl & the fig—Bernstein returned to her early roots in fine-arts photography, carrying with her decades of experience shaping atmosphere, narrative, and human connection. These sensibilities now form the backbone of her visual practice and her curatorial vision for Proto.Logue.
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Her creative journey is grounded in traditional, lens-based photography, but it has expanded decisively into the digital realm. Embracing AI as both tool and collaborator, Bernstein develops hybrid works that blur the boundaries between photography, digital collage, and generative art. Each piece begins with a considered visual impulse—often rooted in memory, observation, or emotion—and evolves through experimentation, layering, and transformation. The resulting works occupy a space between the familiar and the surreal, inviting viewers to reflect on how technology reshapes perception, authorship, and storytelling.
This same curiosity drives Bernstein’s role as curator of Proto.Logue. Rather than positioning curation as separate from creation, she approaches it as an extension of her own artistic inquiry. Proto.Logue becomes a platform for dialogue—between disciplines, mediums, and communities—foregrounding artists who are navigating the evolving relationship between craft, technology, and lived experience. Her curatorial approach favors exploration over conclusion, process over polish, and openness over categorization.
Bernstein’s commitment to the broader digital art ecosystem has been longstanding. She was an early participant in, and later served as a curator for, SearchLight until 2025—an experience that sharpened her curatorial voice and reinforced her belief in building meaningful, inclusive artistic communities within emerging digital spaces.
Philanthropy remains an integral part of her practice. In recognition of her deep ties to Sonoma and its creative community, a portion of proceeds from her artwork sales supports the Sonoma FIG Foundation, extending the legacy of giving that defined her years in the culinary world into her life as an artist.
Sondra Bernstein’s work—both personal and curatorial—reflects a philosophy of continuous learning and reinvention. Her path stands as a testament to the creative possibilities that emerge when traditional skills, lived experience, and new technologies intersect, offering a model for later-career transformation fueled by curiosity, generosity, and genuine passion.
To learn more about her work and view available pieces, visit sondra-bernstein.com.