Sydney-based surrealist painter Charles Billich has become the latest artist to jump on the NFT bandwagon, with a collection of 70 short animations with elements and homages to his past and present works.
The 10-second NFTs are extracted from a 75-second animation, “Journey of Flat Earth (Master),” which the Billich Alive team is also selling on Opensea.
“The collection covers themes including six-sided Earth forging a path through the cosmos, Lady Justice portrayed as a superhero and QR codes as an ode to the mass disruption caused by the pandemic,” a media release reads.
Billich, an 87-year-old Croatian-Australian married to “Real Housewives of Melbourne” star Christa Billich, has lived a colourful life and says he’s looking to again break with convention by exploring digital art and NFTs.
“With oil, you write a book. With a drawing, maybe a page, at best a chapter. I now want to write a movie, using my paintbrush,” he said.
Geoffrey McDonald, a Sydney barrister and accountant and managing director of Billich Alive, says that NFTs provide value as they act as an identifier that can used to track ownership, mitigating questions about the legitimacy of the artwork in future.
He says that NFTs may soon set the standard of authenticating all art in the future – traditional or digital.
But, he says, “There needs to be a differentiation between recognised artists, like Charles Billich, and the ‘Crypto Punks/Bored Apes,’ for the NFT to hold significant value.
“The value will be in the quality of the art and/or the inspiration it provides.”
Billich says that while there’ll be a place for galleries and traditional artworks, ultimately the future of art will also be digital. “The fate of the old one recognises the culture of the young,” he said.
The collection is for sale on Opensea for 1 Ethereum (US$2,700) each. Billich’s more traditional works can be seen at his gallery in The Rocks, Sydney.