This episode explores the works by contemporary artist Nanu Berks, “a multidimensional artist with a background in communication, healing arts, social-tech and AI”–it dives into an area of-the-art world, until now I have never stepped into–NFT–non-fungible tokens that are a class of cryptocurrency assets.
As part of the visual journey through Nanu Berks’ paintings and NFT works, I explore the abstract artist Hilma af Klint. In episode 87 I take a deeper dive in this Modernist who engaged in channeling as a guide across the canvas. Check it out!
The abstract, female artist Hilma af Klint is highlighted in this episode. Below is her “channeled” work “No. 7., Adulthood” (Image Credit: Guggenheim Museum)
Resources for this podcast include the writings of James Royal, Kevin Voigt, Ollie Leach. Learn more about Nanu Berks’ at her website and follow her @nanu_berks.
Script: Episode 115: Nanu Berks: Female Pioneer in Crypto Art Movement. This episode will explore the works by contemporary artist Nanu Berks, “a multidimensional artist with a background in communication, healing arts, social-tech and AI”–it will also dive into an area of the art world, until now I have never personally stepped into–NFT–non-fungible tokens that are a class of crypto currency assets.
For those of us who are unfamiliar with NFT, allow me a few moments to break it down for you. Special thanks to writings of James Royal, Kevin Voigt and Ollie Leech–in my research. Crypto currency is a form of payment that can be exchanged online for goods and services or traded for profit. It is a type of currency which uses digital files as money. They work using a technology called blockchain. Blockchain is a decentralized technology spread across many computers that manages and records transactions. There are more than 6,700 different crypto currencies traded publicly–the largest is Bitcoin, another is Ethereum
NFT, Non-fungible tokens are digital assets–they are unique and cannot be replaced with something else. Every NFT is a unique token on the blockchain, therefore non-fungible. No two NFTs are identical. For example, a Bitcoin is fungible–you can trade one Bitcoin for another Bitcoin and you’ll have exactly the same thing. Dollars and coins are fungible–they can be exchanged for one another and are worth the same value. Most NFT’s are part of the Ethereum blockchain. NFT’s can really be anything digital such as drawings, music) but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art. It is fine art collecting only with digital art. They are designed to give you something that can’t be copied: ownership of the work–for example: anyone can buy a Monet print, but only one person can own the original. The difference between an original Monet painting and an NFT creation? The Monet painting is a physical object, with NFT–artwork in digital form is literally as good as the original. The actual NFT is a digital token that points to a photo or video.
Artists who sell artwork in digital form directly to a global audience of buyers and collectors without using an auction house or gallery allows them to keep a significantly greater portion of the profits they make from sales. As a buyer or collector, this is another avenue to support artists. Like all assets supply and demand are the key market drivers for price. Another way to think about an NFT is digitalized music on streaming platforms like ITunes. For artists like Nanu, you can create and sell works that there otherwise might not be much of a market for, especially through traditional avenues like art auction or gallery.
Let’s journey through one of her works, from 2017–titled “Hickory”, acrylic and ink on hickory wood that was “rescued and upcycled”. I am going to take you through from its inception to the physical object, a painting, titled Hickory, it is in the possession of someone’s collection, to its digitized animated version or NFT. I chose this painting amongst a series of prolific works because it truly captured my attention. Even before I put words to the elements and objects that make up or compose the work– Visually I am flowing through a river of objects—from the top of the canvas to the bottom, there are waves of horizontal stripes, each stripe, one is cream colored, or dark blue, deep red is articulated with sweeping brushstrokes atop the dominant color, creating a rhythm or flow. Atop the stripes are a fantastical sea of objects, all throughout the work, some familiar like a cluster of planets–I recognize Jupiter by its yellow ring, there is a solitary tooth with wings and halo–I learned from Nanu’s Instagram she calls it “holy molar”, sequences of numbers and letters I cannot decipher, one of the dominant objects is a profile of a wolf’s head, larger in scale to the other objects, his ears are pointed forward, his snout shut, a furry of blue lines make up his fur. At the bottom of the canvas is an alien shaped head of a man, his eyes are closed with distinctive long lashes, a third eye smack in the middle of his forehead gazes directly at me–to the right of the man’s head is a bare tree with spindly, skeletal branches (there is another similar tree isolated in a clear globe shaped from resting at the base of the wolf’s throat–the scale of the individual objects varies, there is a set of full lips, painted green, exposing a row of top teeth, tentacles extend from the bottom lip –reminds me of an octopus. throughout the painting, the objects are somewhat connected by thick vines, green, blue, pinks–some of them appear like piping and others seemingly writhe through the composition. Hickory is a surreal space, vibrant in its colors–inhabited by objects in nature like the wolf, tree, planets–the familiar with the nonsensical.
Nanu shared Hickory was commissioned by a collector “who saw me live painting. I spoke with him on the phone for half hour and painted this as a channeled piece for him.” Let’s think about that process of channeling–the artist engages with her spirit–it is her guide across the canvas, that inner intangible voice that transposes color, line, shapes, forms onto the canvas. One notable female artist who engaged in “channeling” was early 20th century abstract painter Hilma af Klint who was guided by spirit in her compositions of geometric shapes, florid movement and symbols–In the painting No.7, Adulthood, one of 10 works from her series The Ten Largest, we are immersed in a composition of bright purples, seeping shades of pink–there are recognizable forms, like the bright yellow “reminiscent of a bloom emerging from a bulb,” free-flowing forms of varying sizes and stylized letters that unfurl like ribbons.
She said, “works were painted directly through me without any preliminary drawings and with great force”. Like Nanu, Spirituality is common thread–it is a way to “engage their energy and work.” Hilma works are imagined alternative worlds. Nanu’s channeled painting is anchored in objects we see in nature like the wolf, the tree, the planets. Hickory illuminates as Nanu says, “how fast technology evolves and how hard it is to sit still and slow down to remember we are part of nature.”
From this composition Hickory Nanu created, an NFT for the Ark Project to help raise awareness and funds for Wild Life conservations. —Same painting but in a digital file. Nanu sent me the file but noted the music was still being created by a music team. When completed the NFT will be accompanied by music. In the digital file, the vibrant painting becomes alive–for 8 seconds like a video. The surface of the work is activated and animated. The vines actively flow, leading my eye up and down and around the recognizable object–the wolf’s head–his fur moves like it is being stroked, the bare tree, its inner branches stretch upwards and then recedes, the eye, the singular eye moves up and down; it is mesmerizing–the planets rotate in the atmosphere of those horizontal stripes—the one constant, stable part of the composition are the stripes. They are an anchor to the undulating objects and forms. The experience of the NFT is surreal. Hickory is very personal to Nanu because it was “the first commission after deciding I was going to go full time as an artist”
From an interview at Midwest Fashion Week, Nanu Berks is the “first woman to live-paint and create crypto art as well as one of the first artists to create fashionable crpto art clothing. She is originally from Argentina, relocating to the United States–and has lived a nomadic life since she was 14. (how does living a nomadic life inform your work?) At her heart I think her work, her artistic process is rooted in one part social activism. This comes from personal experience: She told Voyage Dallas, In 2002, there was a big financial crisis in Argentina and my family and I lost all of our life-savings overnight (wasn’t much but, to begin with, but we lived a normal humble life in a small apt with access to basic needs).She said her mom, a single mother was left to take care of a house with two kids with nothing. I mean no job, no shoes, no more access to education, eating ice cream for dinner three times a week because it was the cheapest food around. She reveals her “family was one of the victims of banks stealing all of our family savings.–overnight they ended up in the street. Art was her coping mechanism. The experience, the economic injustice imparted on her family, it shaped in her to create “more intentionally.”
Her art, the creative process of making art is an avenue of healing for Nanu. She reveals, ” I had severe depression as early as five years old and had no idea what to do with my emotions. Creating my own colorful universes was my salvation and my healing. Creative expression is our most powerful tool for self-healing.” On the canvas and within the digital image she devotes her time to exploring emotions, the broad landscape of her inner life, it explodes onto the canvas through colors, and forms and shapes and lines–I myself get completely lost in her work and come out the other side feeling more alive. I do not say that lightly. Experiencing art is seminal in my life because it liberates me from constraints–it knocks out the voices I was surrounded by in my upbringing right into adulthood. It is fascinating to me how art is where Nanu and I can meet–it is a level playing field to wade in. I lived very, very traditional, Italian American Catholic upbringing, roles for women were more limited–I was encouraged to pursue education and a career–but deterred to live more boldly; choices, even the way you present yourself outwardly was tempered; art changed all that for me because many artists, especially women, they turned traditions and patriarchy on its head. They didn’t conform. Artists like Nanu, she is around 30, I am almost 60, enliven me. In her expressions abundant in its vibrancy what rises for me, as Nanu so eloquently says, “beauty is important for the sole purpose of play, joy, creation and relaxation.” She shows us through her art how to “really experience” fullness, abundance, whimsy-and opens us up to the ways technologies, like “color therapy, light and sound waves, new digital experience through NFT help us grow. I am so moved by her work and inspired by her artistic life. We have chatted on the phone, exchanged emails and texts–her love for art is infectious–join me now in a conversation with Nanu Berks.