Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, that is a fact that has been extremely irrefutable for several years now. In less than 15 years we have witnessed the evolution of a system that began with a very simple approach; be an alternative way to make digital payments online.
In these years we have seen how cryptocurrencies broke the borders of finance and jumped into social networks, video games and the arts. We started as communities of enthusiasts and miners, other platforms were built on these foundations and today we are already a whole culture that has its own icons, its own celebrities, its own entertainment, its own history and its own expression.
This powerful conglomeration of facts, added to my own personal experience and history with crypto, the blockchain system, and NFT technology; they are the conceptual and emotional load that have inspired my most recent work at NFTShowroom
Hive Crypto Art is the second piece that I tokenize on this wonderful platform that not only offers both the Artist and the Collector a friendly and easy-to-use interface, but also has a comprehensive and passionate team that puts enormous love into promoting the works that are published in this market and to support artists both here on Hive and on traditional social networks such as Twitter.
This piece is part of a series that is completely dedicated to cryptocurrencies and the objective is to represent each one (or at least a good part) of the cryptocurrencies that exist in this way. Obviously I have decided to start with my favorites and the most iconic; therefore our beloved Hive could not be left behind.
Here I want to add that the way in which the work is represented has a whole symbolism behind it, which of course is part of the concepts that I have already explained previously. However, before describing this, I would like to show how the process of making the work went step by step.
The Process:
To begin to describe the process of making this work, I have to say that on an artistic and technical level I am very proud of the fact that I have harmonically combined 3 disciplines: photography, photo retouching and digital art. I feel that each of these disciplines made a fair contribution to the work and you will tell me if you agree with me.
Step 1:
This is the skeleton of my work, the photograph of a hand on a black background, Mariana (my life partner, wife and model) is the owner of this beautiful hand. Obviously it's nothing special and that's the beautiful magic of the artistic process; take something ordinary to transform it into something extraordinary.
Step 2:
This is where the photo retouching came in, which I did digitally using Photoshop. The process here consisted of texturing the image to give it a drawing aspect, which also allowed me to highlight the expressive lines of Mariana's hand.
Additionally I adjusted the contrast (I love high contrast, I use it most of the time) and also saturated the colors a bit. I also added a white glow that borders the entire hand.
Step 3:
From here begins the turn of digital art, first I created a circle that I filled with red tones; the first darker and similar to the tone of the Hive logo, and the second lighter, almost reaching white.
I gave the circle some opacity because it is not a simple circle but a glass sphere, almost ethereal, that contains the Hive logo inside.
At this point the circle is a long way from looking like that ethereal ball, but after adding textures, edges and glows to both the circle and the logo we get to the end result where Hive is held in one hand.
The Symbolism:
Now that I have shown you how I made the work, as well as the disciplines and elements I used, it is time to explain the meaning of each one:
The cryptocurrency is held in the hand to symbolize the access and freedom that Hive offers us. When I talk about access I mean all the opportunities that the Hive ecosystem has given us; both to the authors that we have been rewarded for our publications, and to the possibility of accessing NFT games like Rising Star (I love it) and also to the access that this ecosystem gives us for the creation and collection of NFTs, and of course to the enormous exchange system between Tokens (Hive Engine and Tribaldex).
When I refer to freedom I mean that Hive has no borders or major limitations, we are all welcome here to participate in this economy as long as our intentions are good, we can also send and receive money to / or from anywhere in the world in a blink and without paying commissions. This for me is the maximum expression of financial freedom.
That's what the hand holding Hive symbolizes, now with respect to the circle; I chose the spherical shape because when we say currency we think of a circle, because that is how we have always known them. We even usually represent cryptocurrency logos as circles where the logo is contained, so the spherical shape was definitely the best option.
But now one can only wonder: why does this crystalline sphere have to look so ethereal? Well simple; cryptocurrencies are digital and there is no way to see or touch them in the physical world, so it seems to me that their artistic representation must be ethereal and even a little poetic.
In fact, the hand itself does not hold the cryptocurrency, but rather the cryptocurrency delicately levitates above the hand. To me this is the interpretation of what holding a cryptocurrency should look like; although you cannot touch it with your hands, you have it and it is yours.
As with the first work I published on NFTShowroom, I tokenized a single edition to ensure that the piece is unique in the world and can only have one owner. Also in this case I am selling the work for a value of 5 Swap.Hive for those who wish to visit it this is the link: https://nftshowroom.com/sembrandounpais/gallery/sembrandounpais_visual-universe_hive-crypto-art
Now I say goodbye grateful also to those who have read me, I hope your comments and see them in the next post.
