Mark Knol is a Dutch generative artist,who has published coded, algorithmic series on Tezos-based platforms including hic et nunc, fxhash, and objkt.com.Among them is the SMOLSKULL collection of pixelated, fully coded skull portraits.He works as a game developer at Media.Monks and has contributed to open-source projects, particularly within the Haxe programming language community. He began making generative art around 2008, during the Flash and ActionScript era.,
Knol has said his introduction to generative art came from watching Erik Natzke's talk at FITC in 2008. He discovered NFTs when Mario Klingemann and Matt DesLauriers began tweeting about Tezos and hicetnunc.xyz in March 2021, promoted as an energy-efficient alternative to Ethereum minting.DesLauriers onboarded him, and his first work sold on hicetnunc shortly after. Within about six months he had become one of the platform's top-selling artists.
He created SMOLSKULL as a fully coded PFP project with no image layers. It shows a pixelated skull with a rounded head that mixes pixel and vector art, built from a limited color palette and a range of facial expressions.Released on fxhash in November 2021 as the platform's 14th deployed project, it became fxhash's first PFP project to be embraced by its community. By February 2023 the collection ranked eighth in fxhash's all-time sales volume.Knol later extended the series with ASCII-SMOLSKULL, built around a custom character set based on the DOS font, and with 3D-SMOLSKULL, made in collaboration with a fellow generative artist, completing what he called a trilogy.
Knol has produced other coded series, including MILL, a minimalistic project inspired by Piet Mondrian and his Dutch background, and teared.locations, built on a grid- and subdivision-based algorithm.He released Bugged Gaze via fxhash in December 2023, his first collection on Ethereum.In 2023 he designed the Mint Pass for “Blind Gallery Vistas Edition”, a landscape-themed generative art show co-curated by Casey Reas and Kaloh in collaboration with Feral File.With Jordi Gandul, he made SMOLSKULLs × Monster Gaze, 2023.SMOLSKULL was included in “Celebrating PFPs on Tezos”, a group show of Tezos-based PFP collections at Suburbs Gallery in Montréal, in April 2025.,
