*** The pieces below will be individually minted as NFTs and dropped (over a 2-3 month timeline) exclusively through my platform on SuperRare. Each collector who purchases the NFT will also receive the physical art work. Please keep a look out on my SuperRare profile here as well as updates made via twitter ***

The information and content below was originally created and written in early July and published on August 10th 2021. I have made some decisions since the time of the original publication (see above in terms of the NFT drops) but I’m leaving the original content below as a way of showing and sharing my thinking process and how things sometimes get solved. I’m a big advocate of sharing one’s process and being transparent so that others can learn. I find it so helpful to narrate and explain my step by step process. I hope it can help, add value and inspire others!

*Portrait #1 – dropped on 8/19/21 – (Sold on 8/25/21) – https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/the-twenty-portraits=40-series—portrait-1-27364

*Portrait #2 – The Easter Egg Bonus Piece has dropped on 8/25/21 – available now here – https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/missions-27588

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Twenty Portraits X2 = 40

Here they are, all 40 pieces in the “Twenty Portraits X2 = 40” series.. (plus a series of easter egg bonus pieces, and animated GIFs – stay tuned!)

Please allow me to explain what you are seeing here. 1st, below, is a wall composite consisting of 20 physical portraits arranged on the wall in my studio. Each portrait applies a different technique and application of how the overall art work comes together as a whole. Most of these pieces began as analog / applied art works. Meaning, they were hand drawn, and then re-drawn, painted, or all of the above and then printed and converted into a “cut N’ paste” collage so that a physical art work would be produced. This is important in the process as it is also the basis of the further evolution of the works, especially by scanning, digitizing and further manipulating each piece into a digital file format, a .JPG. As the NFT and crypto-art revolution continues, the .JPG file format has become revered and a much talked about entity. The pieces in this series investigate the grey line between applied and digital art processes, portraits versus avatars and how their imagery plays a role in how we communicate, self-expression and the awareness of investment in the 1/1 edition. Each physical piece below in the wall composite is sized at 8.5″ X 11″ and has 5 strips of clear masking tape vertically applied on top of the surface. The clear tape creates an additional layer of texture as well as a glossy cliche’ “protective” element that can preserve and archive the art.

Of course each piece can work independently of the composite shown above, and this was my original intention, however, I do love how they look in the wall arrangement format. It gets me thinking, what if I made 20, 50 or 500 more? What role does scale play here? I still might consider making a ZINE of some kind and figuring out how to make a small edition of three? Or perhaps just keep it at one? These are good problems to solve. PS – there is one image below that was manipulated a bit more than the others above, can you find it?

Let’s take a look below for now. Each piece has been scanned and enhanced using a variety of tweaks in adobe photoshop. I saved each image as a .JPG file sized at 8.5″ X 11″ in RGB screen resolution of 150 dpi. Feel free to click on any image below to enlarge and isolate them into your browser. This will give the viewer an isolated peek at how the work would look on various screens in the digital format. I find that using a composite image gallery also does the art work some justice in contrast to the physical wall composite above. It creates a good tension between the two. Especially in the web browser using both mobile and desktop platforms. What format do you like better? Analog or digital? Or Both? Plus we have an animation below to look at..

Are these portraits or are they avatars? Context plays a role, just as how and where they are presented and applied plays a role. Im interested in this as we are seeing so many new avatar projects popping up in the NFT space as well as applied artists reinventing and transcending the portrait as subject. Do the words “portrait” or “avatar” soon become hybrids? The “portratar” or the “avatrait”? Surely as time goes on, we will all desire more customized / personalized avatars to represent ourselves (which may consist of several aspects of how we interpret who we are as individuals) in various digital, virtual and meta-world spaces and platforms (many are already onto this for several years now..) But how long will the 2D images remain desired as more and more artists, designers and creatives explore 3D, AR, VR and Hologram techniques and technologies? Its super exciting either way and Im certainly experimenting with many of these new technologies! It seems obvious and only logical to animate this series of images. Its hard not to see a sequence that can be converted to frames and applied into the animation timeline. This may cause further issues when minting an NFT as each frame is a part of the whole animation, but the frame rate / speed plays a role as well. Where do you stand on this? Does the individual NFT retain its value and grow if it becomes a single frame as a part of a larger sequence of images? Such as this GIF below.. or is this GIF its own digital art work / asset that contains many fragments for milli-seconds.. I struggle with this!

Animated GIFs may also emerge as bonus pieces! 

*Portrait #2 – The Easter Egg Bonus Piece has dropped on 8/25/21 – available now here – https://superrare.com/artwork-v2/missions-27588

Its time for me to begin minting these. There will be 1/1 NFT editions generated whilst continuing to think about how to best share and promote them to my collectors and the community at large. Thoughts? I would love to read your feedback below in the comments section!

*** The pieces below will be individually minted as NFTs and dropped (over a 2-3 month timeline) exclusively through my platform on SuperRare. Each collector who purchases the NFT will also receive the physical art work. Please keep a look out on my SuperRare profile here as well as updates made via twitter ***