My latest collage - "Balaram Battalion" – minted as NFT on Hive blockchain

Here is my recent handmade paper collage art piece to add to my gallery and portfolio. I call it Balaram Battalion and it was done as Russia’s Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. I minted it along with my previous works on the HIVE blockchain at www.nftshowroom.com and have only now decided to make a blog post about it.

The world has entered a major war phase with this invasion on Ukraine and now, two months on the battle of Ukraine continues. As you may know, Ukraine is famous for its Azov Battalion – a brigade of Neo-Nazis according to history on them. I decided to add to my collection of war or martial art pieces by creating this collage. Some of my main art themes include surreal or mystical themes, as well as martial themes, like this one here.

The coat of arms is an old classical image from history depicting a griffin – a mythical creature with eagle and lion combined, by the look of it. I added some military imagery and the black and red backdrop. Black and red are popular in base chakra, nationalist imagery, which this and most wars tend to ignite. Particularly as soldiers fight for their homeland.

You can also see the globe underfoot of the griffin, showing the stance of world domination, which is what most dictatorships aim for. We are, after all, looking at the clash of the two superpowers – USA (NATO, the West) and Russia (along with China, the East). This is the global world war for global domination, or at least an attempt at push back against the unipolar USA domination of the planet since WW2.

This current war is the start of WW3, the hot or kinetic war to add to the already present cyber war, cold war, economic war and trade war under way. The nations of the world are being pushed to choose one side or the other. The battle for the resources is intense and will lead to global food shortages and possibly worse.

Still, I make art out of the remnants of the war via this collage and I have minted the image as a NFT (non fungible token) on the HIVE blockchain, with two copies for sale at 21 Hive coin each. It’s not likely they will sell and I merely mint them for my own pleasure, to add to my digital NFT gallery. This is art for art’s sake, and a pleasurable pastime for me in creating the imagery.

At the foot of the image you can see two nests with seven eggs each, since the griffin is half bird. These are her nest eggs, not all in one basket. They will hatch when the time is right, so there is hope that this war will help the world to end globalization and the unipolar control by the west. A balance of east and west is preferable as both alone are tyrannical, the west just with a smile and a velvet glove over the iron fist, while the east drops the smile and the glove.

If you wish to purchase this NFT, you can view it and more of my works at https://nftshowroom.com/julianhorack/gallery/julianhorack_collages-julescape-q1-2022_balaram-battalion-putin-invades-kyiv. The name Balaram is a Sanskrit name for the older brother of the chief god Krishna. Balaram is the epitome of spiritual strength and the protector of Krishna.