Mayhem Island Bananas is a collection of banana NFTs by Artist Jimmy Danko on the Ethereum blockchain. These unique hybrid Bananas start out hand drawn and are digitally bred one by one for their supernatural qualities.

As the Mayhem Island project and story progresses it will become more layered and nuanced. Possibilities include potential scenarios where different properties are correlated to outside partnerships or incorporate digital and physical giveaways to collectors through unlockable content and secret drops.

The first 100 bananas in the collection were released at .03 ETH.

The price of future releases in the collection is TBD.

Mayhem Island Bananas live on the Ethereum Blockchain and are available for purchase on Open Sea.

There will be a total of 500 Mayhem Island Bananas once the project is complete. The first 100 Bananas dropped June 23rd, 2021. The second drop is TBD. I intend to build in additional functionality like enhanced collector access on Discord and other features. The original collection of Mayhem Island Bananas will never be generative – they will always be made individually, by me, and by hand.

Mayhem Island Bananas, and their characteristics, were hand drawn and then refined and composed in Adobe Illustrator. Then an overly complicated matrix-esque cataloging system was devised to chart the finished bananas and characteristic applications leading to the creation of all of the unique bananas. These bananas are not generative, they are lovingly created by hand, by me. “It ain’t much, but it’s honest work”

It’s hard to think of a better place for a Bored Ape to escape to on his yacht. Mayhem Island is a place where ape-tastic mayhem reigns supreme, and is the home of the Banana Merchant – Bored Ape #6529 (owned by Danko). As the cultivator of these otherworldly bananas, and chief proprietor of Mayhem Island Bananas, the Banana Merchant ferries his precious cargo all over the Universe to embolden and nourish apes and banana connoisseurs wherever they may be.

I’m a Downtown Los Angeles artist, named Jimmy Danko, and I’m the creator of Mayhem Island Bananas. I’m known for my realistic oil paintings on wood and large-scale mural partnerships with companies like Lexus and Converse. The best way I like to describe my work is that it juxtaposes vibrant graphic elements with fragmented iconic commercial references and toys from the 80’s and 90’s. My background in graphic design and my Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting, both led me to work to perfect a realistic classical oil painting technique to give an elevated but approachable view on how objects transform in their significance and meaning to us, as viewed through the lens of how we relate to them in space and time.

As a kid I was fascinated by primates. Fast-forward years later to the first painting I ever attempted. Staring at that blank canvas, I was initially stumped as to what to paint but quickly landed on the idea of a collage of primates, one of which was a gorilla. As I swiped my brush, loaded with paint, across the brow of the gorilla, I knew I was hooked on painting for good and a by-product of that revelation was that I had a new muse. The ‘Danko Gorilla’, launched originally in 2003, has taken on various forms and iterations–continuing to evolve, lockstep with my work. The Danko Gorilla has been populated all over the world, through my art, prints, t-shirts and stickers. (Read more about the story of the Danko Gorilla here.)

Obviously Bananas and primates go hand in hand, so it’s not so unusual for them to also show up in my artwork – like in my “Space Ape” mural on the westside of Los Angeles. When the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs were released there was no way I wasn’t getting an Ape. It was an NFT I felt deeply connected to. Soon after I began conceptualizing my own genesis NFT project. With Apes proliferating my origin story, and now the metaverse, it seemed natural that I needed to create a collection of bananas – as bananas already feature prominently in my work.

“SPACE APE” MURAL

Created in partnership with Lexus, Beauty Earth & GiveWith.

My artwork often involves portioning the sales towards causes that resonate with me. For this first release, a portion of each initial Mayhem Island Banana sale will be donated to The Hunger Project.  

Their Mission:

“To end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, grassroots, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption in countries throughout the world.”

Subsequent Bunch releases will continue this effort of giving and the beneficiaries of the contributions may shift to other additional groups as well.

I also love personally adding to my own art collections and look forward to reinvesting back into the NFT art community.

All Rights Reserved. I will reevaluate sharing commercial rights at different points throughout the project.