My latest NFT collage artwork “Window on the World” minted on the Hive blockchain

Today I’m happy to announce the minting of my latest awesome artwork as an NFT (non-fungible token) on the HIVE blockchain. I’ve called it “Window on the World” and you can see why. In fact you can see forever when you look at this picture because it shows the cosmos with numerous planets, galaxies and the sun.

My aim was to create a window through which the viewer can imagine a vast expanse of depth going into the distance. There is one solitary person in the scene who is a monk or mystic seeker, curiously from the Coptic Christian sect of hermits. He appears to be standing in his temple, although the temple has no floor or walls.

From his vantage point the temple looks like a space ship flying through the solar system, and the hermit is able to calmly look down at the planet earth below him, as the space ship of a temple passes by. I use a sense of irony in that the temple is depicted as made of very earthy solid and heavy rock, like any old building, and yet it is also a flying space ship.

With my usual collage technique of cutting and pasting juxtaposing images on top of each other, I have created another image for the collection or portfolio that shows a sense of depth via layering of foreground and background upon each other. The planetary bodies are not true to life since we have what could almost be seen as a second earth right next to the first one. Nevertheless, it’s a fantasy image and not meant to look like real life.

The earth is below and the moon is nearby, while the sun is seen above, shining rays or emanating solar flares if you like. Just in front of it is the small planet Mercury, closest to the sun, here transiting directly in front of it. I wanted to give the impression of the monk or hermit in the image being situated between the sun and the earth.

Behind the central figure we can see two pillars which are features of the hermit’s temple room. The sun is actually situated between the two pillars, as if to say there is an overlap of the sun and the temple. The sun is housed between the two pillars of the temple. Above one of them we can see mounted on top the head of the Buddha or enlightened one. Some call him the awakened one. This is the symbol of enlightenment achieved by all mystics and spiritual seekers on the path.

The Buddha’s head is seen to display some symbols of his awakening. Curiously in the mystic yoga tradition, the meditating aspirant is able to harness the flow of the life force which circulates up and down the two channels that sit astride the central spinal column. These are what is alluded to by the two pillars of the temple building. The Buddha and the sun are both alluding to the goal of full consciousness that can be awakened as the life force reaches the pituitary and pineal glands in the brain, which has been symbolized in yoga philosophy by a blossoming lotus flower with 1000 petals, as seen above the Buddha’s head in the collage.

In the background on the pillars of the temple room we can see some images of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, kings or gods like Osiris – the sun - and Isis – the moon, the male and female counterparts, of which their offspring Horus, is perhaps a Mercurial figure. One can speculate about the correlations between varying mythologies and I like to add such metaphoric as well as esoteric imagery in my artworks to convey a sense of otherworldliness and transcendence. Any religious iconography appeals to me and can be seen in most of my collages that get minted as NFTs in my gallery.

All my artworks begin as a piece of paper about scrapbook size, or roughly 30cm x 20cm. I simply cut out pictures from old magazines and paste them into a new remixed image as my final collage art piece, using glue. This is an exercise in recycling and making art with minimal expense. Then I scan the image and upload it onto the blockchain, thereby minting it as an NFT or digital tokenized artwork in its own right. There are only two minted editions, one for sale and one to keep in my portfolio collection.

This one is selling for 73 HIVE tokens, and you can view it at www.nftshowroom.com/julianhorack/gallery. The value of the HIVE token is of course shifting constantly as the market fluctuates, so you will benefit from purchasing this work now while HIVE tokens are not too expensive. These NFT artworks are going down in history and are collectors items which will retain their value like any original artwork created by fine artists throughout history.