/ Project Details
Year
2021
Artwork Info
3840 x 2160 Resolution
Seamless Loop MP4
Audio by Archimusic
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02 / Info
Towards the end of 2020, I was invited to participate as an artist in the #CarbonDrop, an NFT art auction supporting open digital technology for climate via the Open Earth Foundation. What started as an opportunity quickly became a dream project as I had the chance to collaborate with some of my favorite digital artists in the world. Featuring Beeple, Refik Anadol, Gmunk, Fvckrender, Sara Ludy, Andres Reisinger, and Mieke Marple, the auction spanned several days on the NiftyGateway platform and ended up raising over $6 million for the Open Earth Foundation.
Izanami was acquired by Jehan Chu for $22,008 with all proceeds going towards the Open Earth Foundation. Since it’s acquisition, it has appeared in countless international exhibitions, festivals, and galleries.
03 / CarbonDrop Artist Statements
Hear from NFT artists and organizations on this collaborative climate action. Directed by Alex Tyson.
04 / RNDR Network
Besides being long term supporters of my work, the Render Network provided free Octane services and Render Tokens to all artists leveraging their tools. They also sponsored 100% of the 500 carbon offsets used for the auction, sourcing from Creol.io. Special thanks to Josh Bijak, who had the vision and engineering for the carbon net-negative model, to Paige Lewington who tirelessly worked on communication press and social media, and Patrick Frigg and Jules Urbach for his support and sponsorship.
05 / About Izanami
This piece is called “Izanami”. In Japanese mythology, Izanami is known as the goddess of creation and death. A lot of my work is heavily inspired by Japanese culture, anime, and fantasy, so I felt Izanami was the perfect embodiment of our climate drop’s statement to the world. We have the responsibility to educate ourselves and others to be better to our home planet, because while it has the ability to provide beauty and life (creation), it also has the power to create destruction and chaos (death).
My interpretation of this Japanese Goddess blends these stark contrasts through three personas. On one side you have the embodiment of darkness (greed, chaos, destruction), while the right side portrays the light (creation, positivity, passion). The center embodiment of Izanami represents the balance between these two (neutrality, balance). As human beings, we too can take on characteristics of all of these personas through our actions, especially when it comes to our relationship with our planet. We’re at an inflection point, flirting with danger befalling the planet due to our negligence and ignorance (inferred by the central spire pointing its sharp end towards the lower eye flower). It is ultimately up to us (and in our best interest) to take small steps and positive action to protect our home. In some ways, the planet may share with us more of its beauty (creation), in other ways it could show its ugliness as we harm the planet further (destruction). Whether we choose the path that ensures the survival and nurturing of this planet, or the path that ensures its eventual destruction, earth itself is a neutral passenger that is just along for the ride. We have the power and responsibility to make changes today for a better and more beautiful tomorrow.
This piece is important to me for a variety of reasons. The first because I feel that I can tell a story through my artwork and set an example for other creators to use their art for positive impact. Additionally, this particular artwork is a pretty important milestone in my career as an artist. I haven’t released much of my own personal work in the past few years, and often struggle with honing in on my own style/aesthetic since I jump between so many mediums and aesthetics from project to project. It also doesn’t help that I’m a perfectionist and a harsh critic of my own work. Like no joke, I will literally spend DAYS fine tuning colors, getting the grain “just right”, or experimenting well past where a normal person would consider a work complete.
I feel after this year of personal growth and creative explorations (and taking that risk of doing the personal art projects), I’ve finally honed in on an aesthetic with my work that I feel not only captures my own unique flair, but feels right to my core (which is really silly, vivid, and weird to be honest). I truly believe that aesthetics evolve and change over time with experimentation, but that doesn’t manifest unless you put the time in trying new things and constantly find new ways to be inspired. This work is one of the first artworks I’m releasing that fine tunes years of notebook scribbles, notes/thoughts in journals/digital notebooks, visual deep dives, experimentation, and endless troughs of Pinterest boards.