Mars #342/388

Once upon a time... a little boy named Leo loved to paint, draw and experiment. He also loved to play with blocks and chains, which drew him again and again into the rooms of his friends Michel and Angelo. Often they also met in virtual rooms of Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, Somnium Space or Sandbox to create new inventions, read books about new technologies, or just swing the brushes. But on this day something gigantic happened. A good friend of Leo came to visit and brought his girlfriend Mona, who wanted a piece of Leo's art on her skin. This was the birth of the NFT's, as Leo developed Non Fungible Tattoos in the Block Chain Dungeon of Michel and Angelo. From that day on people from all over the world came to get NFT's from Leo or one of his students, like "Skeenee the rat", who controls the NFT machine with his laptop. A new age began.

One of 3840 Female punks.

The Switch is a unique, “one of one” NFT that demonstrates the evolution of artwork in the digital realm. The Switch is developed to change form at a specific point of time in the future, known by Pak. The evolution is determined and rendered immutable by smart contracts, or self-executing code on the Ethereum blockchain.

What's the damage?

José Delbo sent me his striking pencil sketch and powerful inked work, which I then interpreted in oil on canvas. I wanted to create a very painterly piece with obvious brush marks etc, but I was also aiming for a nostalgic feel, a kind of 1980’s superhero comic book look, the kind I grew up with. My goal with this animation was to try to recreate, in part, the creative process that both artists went through with the visual information I had. I was able to showcase my painting process more accurately as I could take photographs of my progress throughout. Consecutive images could then be layered like brush strokes over José’s drawing to create the impression that this was one continuous artwork from pencil, to ink, to completed painting. The representation of the line sketch at the beginning, then pencil/ink and lastly the paint layers being applied demonstrate both artists’ struggle for the right lines, tone, form, and colour until the work is finally completed. As the oil was still wet with each photograph the glare of my studio lights can be seen in the brush strokes. Eventually, the figure emerges and as it does, our hero comes to life, looking directly at the viewer -- but is he grimacing in approval or disgust? We will never know for sure as just before he can say anything, white paint is brushed across the canvas entirely and the process begins again. Only the bat is quick enough to escape.

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