PIECE II – DROWNING, DROWNING, DROWNING (NO TIME LEFT) (UNRELEASED)

This piece explores the theme of being overwhelmed with work. In my personal life, I have to deal with a lot of work due to undertaking two college courses, working on my artistic image online, and physically, and trying to take care of things at home gets extremely overwhelming. This piece is a visualisation of how I feel in this world of non-stop work.

The piece is a figure (myself), drowning within a large stack of various paper and files. This is symbolism for me being completely swamped and overworked. Often times I am left to my own accord to organise a lot of college work, sifting through hundreds of pages of documents making me extremely burnt out and overworked, often causing me to lose sleep.

 The work is a figure overcoming this huge pile of work, the figure bursts through the workload, to deliver the work to the reaching hands above, which is symbolism for the responsibility I feel to deliver work to my existing collectors, each of them invested in me, while I feel somewhat guilty being swamped within my own life and leaving them without a crumb of work to show for it, I feel a responsibility to have to deliver and release work despite drowning.

 The clocks have multiple different meanings, but the main theme of these clocks are the time it takes to complete these works, the hoard of clocks represent me constantly watching the clock while creating ensuring that I am not neglecting my other responsibilities, but the clocks also represent the faced paced nature of this space, and how continued absence makes you feel like you are somewhat far behind everyone else who is actively building their own spaces, while you are left to lay within the dust of obscurity, this piece ties in with the previous piece, as it is me overcoming the work that I feel I have been covered with, to deliver something that is truly me, to deliver a piece that I hold high and proud. This piece is symbolism for me finally realising the work that is truly ‘me’.

Each digital clock in this piece is a time that I completed my previous works, each piece that I have made has been completed and finalised at various different times in the day, and this was my way to pay homage to these pieces.

PIECE III – KEEP QUIET (IGNORE THE NOISE)

This piece is a development from PIECE I, and is the acceptance and overcoming of these fears and doubts you have as an artist. In this piece, an artist works away on more drawings, overcoming the workload that was seen in PIECE II, and finally focuses on themselves. Most the doubt and hatred of self have dissolved away, and the only hater left to deal with is the one within your head. This piece is an artist overcoming their brain self-doubting their ability, and is the piece that fills me with calm. It is the piece of me after postponing my college placement due to anxiety and stress bundling up, and for the first time in 2 years, I feel artistically free, I am free to make to my heart’s content, and all of my bundled up emotions of the events have lead up to this.

 This piece however introduces another element of anxiety, which is the constantly moving and forever changing landscape of NFTs, the zebra in this image is at peace and is content focusing on their work, but in the background is a clutter of common tweets in this space, taking up the hollow and depressed background, it is a reference to how some use twitter to fill up the void in their lives, myself included.

 “Why do you try when those who draw for money get recognised, and you are forgotten. You are not the greatest artist of your generation, you are not even the greatest artist of your own mind”

ACQUIRED BY @wgmeets

PIECE IV – C’EST LA VIE (UNRELEASED)

 In PIECE IV, it focuses on the character, long dead and buried.

This is a dark scene and it follows an artist who went to the grave believing that they were never good enough. It was an artist who let the self-doubt get to their heads and they continued living their life never having the confidence to continue doing what they love. Little did the artist know that without all the constant noise in their heads telling them that they weren’t good enough, they actually were appreciated, loved and admired by many, hence the writing on the tombstone.

The worms spell out the text ‘They will appreciate you when you are gone’ as sort of like a pessimistic thought above the skeleton, as almost if it is like a thought bubble for those who can’t think.

The zebra however had doubts even for their own views, and there is a dug hole at eye level so they could see anyone who visits their grave, hinting that there was a suspicion for just how many people really appreciated them

(TBC)

PIECE V – MASQUERADE

In PIECE V, It focuses on an alternate reality to our character, where they pretend to be someone that they are not in order to gain the approval of others, otherwise known as a Masquerade.

In this scene, the spotlight is on our zebra friend, and they are covered in a costume of Pepe the Frog, a popular character in the crypto culture. This piece shows the zebra sat, bathing within the spotlight of a crowded audience of an auction all with their gazes focused solely on the zebra figure, as if to symbolise that they are all mesmerised by the figure because he is dressed as a character that the masses love.

The Pepe costume looks sad, as if it wishes not to be worn despite it being an inanimate feature of clothing, you still feel a sense of pity for both the frog and the zebra.

The audience is all placing bids on this figure, all hoping to own the performance that stands in front of them, but they are only bidding for the frog, and not the soul beneath.

This piece is based on themes that I see within the NFT world day to day, which is artists putting aside their artistic integrity to focus on a theme purely for the purpose of hoping to be bought by a collector who is obsessed with Pepes. This is my piece dedicated to this movement, the ‘pepe-fication’ of art.

Whether you view it as a positive or negative is purely up to you.

SOLD TO VINCENTVANDOUGH FOR 1 ETH

PIECE VI – FUCK THE CHARTS, REMEMBER THE TIMES

This piece is a change from the previously seen pieces focusing on anxiety, doubt and crowding, and is however a focus on the theme of love, care and reassurance.

This piece ties in with piece III, as it explores the theme of obsession with the NFT market. This piece is based on a real life event from May 2021. The piece is a visualisation of when the market crashed and I could not do anything but watch it, my girlfriend was with me and she reassured me that it would be okay.

It made me realise how obsessive people can be over these green and red candles and how no matter what the conditions, they should not let the market completely overtake their lives.

SOLD TO LEAFSWAN FOR 1 ETH

PIECE VII - AVARITIA

AVARITIA is a piece that is topical, and I would argue my interpretation of what it is like to be an artist on NFT twitter at the moment. It is a piece that has brewing in me for a long, long while and the arrival of the finished product was one that made me delighted, as I could never figure out the right way to approach this topic as I felt there would be some backlash or disdain towards me, but I don’t care.

Lets be honest, NFT twitter is not the same place it initially was back in the golden days. Of course, I joined late into the scene (January 2021) and I wasn’t around for the truly early days, but I did bask in the sunlight that was twitter post-beeple christies sale. When everything was about art, artists, wellbeing and fresh ideas and topics. Can I say the same about twitter in its current state? No.

This is not me saying avatars are necessarily a scam, or saying “fuck avatars, buy art” like many do, but it is more just a commentary of how I feel nowadays going on to twitter, seeing absolutely no posts from those I want to see the most, and being absolutely blasted in the face by avatar projects and people screaming about floors, at some point it just gets really tiring to have to sift through hundreds of speculative posts just to see someone truly creating and making art that isn’t a derivative of a derivative of a derivative.

If you zoom into this piece, and truly analyse each tweet you will see that each and every screen is a parody, no names or comments in this are real (besides my mate john who thought it’d be funny to respond to my cryptic tweet hyping up the piece, but he’s a good lad so I figured I’d let him have a screen). Each tweet is an example of the things I see each and every day as I scroll through what was once my favourite place in the world, and now sometimes feels like a chore.

In this piece, I asked friends of mine, family and collectors to throw me random words, and I’d turn them into avatars, this was basically my idea of saying the whole notion of how nowadays everything is an avatar project. Just slap a random word [pancake] and put another word with it [puffy] and congratulations, you have yourself the puffy pancakes 10,000 avatar collection! Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Well this truly is the state of a market that doesn’t properly develop ideas, most projects these days are unoriginal, and a lot are even just blatant copies of other successful projects. It is a sad sight to see when you originally joined this space when it was so positive about supporting artists

I believe that artists will have their day, and things will become like the old days again. But for now, this is my testament to what the space was like in my own eyes.

AVAILABLE FOR AUCTION - 4 ETH RESERVE

FUCK YOUR UTILITY

PROCREATE, 2022, 4960 x 7016

PIECE VIII - FUCK YOUR UTILITY

In a environment of constant demand, the phrase ‘utility’ sends shivers down most artists necks. The phrase ‘Utility’ refers to the collectors who basically demand many things from the artists. It is a phrase which many have come to dislike including myself.

These days with the hundreds of projects available on the market, it has become a trend for many to think that if you buy an NFT it entitles you to receive constant free things beyond the art, and when it is said it makes many see that a lot of people in the NFT space aren’t really about the art but rather what they can get / make from the artist

This is my statement to utility. Fuck Utility.

Sold for 3 eth to hchipvault