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OpenWall

Inspiration

OpenWall was inspired by my mom, who is an artist. For a long time, she talked about how difficult it was to find places to display her work, build a portfolio, meet other artists, and become involved in the local art community. She had the talent and the artwork, but she did not always know where to find opportunities or who to contact.

Her experience changed after she connected with one person in her community. That connection helped her become more involved, participate in exhibitions, and eventually have her own gallery space. I realized that many emerging artists are not lucky enough to meet the right person at the right time.

Artists often post their work online and hope someone discovers it, while separately searching through websites, social media pages, galleries, and local event listings. I wanted to create one place where artists could both showcase their work online and become more active within their artistic community.

That idea became OpenWall.

What OpenWall does

OpenWall is a mobile virtual-gallery platform designed for emerging artists, independent galleries, and people who want to discover art in a more meaningful way.

Visitors can continue as guests, explore curated exhibitions, enter virtual gallery rooms, focus on individual artwork, and learn more about each piece and the artist who created it. Instead of displaying art only as a flat product grid, OpenWall presents it inside a gallery-inspired environment.

Artists can create secure accounts, publish artwork, upload images, save private drafts, and manage their listings. Galleries can create exhibitions, add rooms, position approved artwork, and publish galleries that visitors can explore.

OpenWall also supports consent-based representation. A gallery can invite an artist, but the artist must accept before the gallery can place that artist’s work inside an exhibition. Either side can later end the relationship.

My larger goal is for OpenWall to become more than a virtual gallery. I want it to become one place where artists can:

Build a professional portfolio
Find galleries and exhibitions
Connect with other artists
Discover community opportunities
Promote local art events
Teach or attend art classes
Sell artwork with simplified payment and shipping support

The current submission focuses on building a strong and secure foundation for artwork publishing and virtual exhibitions.

How I built it

I began by talking with my mom about the problems she experienced as an artist and the features that would have helped her most. I combined her perspective with my own ideas and used GPT-5.6 to brainstorm, organize, and refine the product concept.

I then used Codex to turn the concept into a phased development plan. Breaking the project into phases helped prevent the idea from becoming too large to finish. The first phase focused on the main gallery experience. Later phases added authentication, artwork publishing, secure image storage, gallery creation, and representation between artists and galleries.

OpenWall was built with:

Expo and React Native
TypeScript
Expo Router
React Native Reanimated
Supabase Authentication
Supabase Postgres
Supabase Storage
Postgres Row Level Security
React Hook Form and Zod
Vitest and Expo ESLint
Codex powered by GPT-5.6

Codex helped me move from product planning into implementation, database migrations, security policies, testing, debugging, and documentation. GPT-5.6 was especially useful when decisions affected several parts of the project at once, such as user roles, artwork ownership, private image access, gallery permissions, and publication rules.

I still directed the product, selected the features, reviewed the design, tested the application, and decided what should or should not be included in each phase.

Challenges I faced

One of the first challenges was deciding how the virtual gallery should work on a phone. A complete 3D world with free movement could have created performance, accessibility, and compatibility problems. Instead, I chose a layered 2.5D approach. It preserves the feeling of moving through a gallery while remaining responsive and easier to use on mobile devices.

Security was another major challenge. It was not enough to hide buttons in the interface. The database also needed to verify who owned each profile, artwork, image, gallery, and room.

I used Row Level Security, protected database fields, ownership checks, triggers, and secured database functions so that:

Users cannot edit another artist’s private drafts
Artists cannot access files owned by unrelated users
Published artwork can be viewed publicly
Private drafts remain protected
Galleries can only curate artwork they are authorized to represent
Users cannot assign themselves administrator privileges

I also needed the project to remain testable without requiring every judge or developer to configure Supabase immediately. To solve that, OpenWall includes a deterministic demo catalog and an offline creator preview while keeping live Supabase functionality available when credentials are configured.

Another challenge was managing scope. The complete vision includes payments, shipping rates, events, classes, social features, and livestreams. Trying to build all of those at once would have weakened the core experience. I intentionally focused this submission on the features that make OpenWall different: immersive gallery exploration, secure artwork publishing, exhibition creation, and artist-gallery representation.

What I learned

This project taught me that building an application is not only about creating screens. Product planning, database design, permissions, accessibility, testing, and failure states are equally important.

I learned how to:

Structure a React Native application using reusable features and services
Build persistent authentication and role-based onboarding
Design secure Postgres tables and Row Level Security policies
Manage private and public files through Supabase Storage
Create validated multi-step publishing workflows
Model relationships between artists and galleries
Preserve a working demo experience while adding live backend features
Use Codex as an engineering collaborator while still reviewing and understanding the work

Most importantly, I learned how a personal problem can become a practical product idea. OpenWall started with my mom’s experience, but it represents a challenge faced by many talented artists who need a clearer path to being seen, connecting with others, and growing within their community.

What is next

The next stages of OpenWall will focus on persistent favorites and follows, artist networking, events, art classes, payments, artist payouts, shipping integrations, and tools for featured artists.

My long-term vision is for OpenWall to become a simple starting point for artists who do not know where to begin.

OpenWall gives emerging artists a place to be seen, connect, and grow.

Created by Neoiz.