Here’s the story behind the artworks
NFTs, short for non-fungible tokens, is taking the arts and digital world by storm. You can see it almost everywhere, from the NBA to the Miss Universe. Locally, one famous artist just joined the craze with her first NFT releases this November 2021, and that is actress and fashion darling Heart Evangelista.
Known in the art scene as Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero, Heart first announced that she is joining the NFT world in October 2021, in collaboration with Luis Buenaventura a.k.a Cryptopop, one of the first and most talented Filipino NFT artists, and the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra’s Rodel Colmenar.
“It’s a new kind of digital art that is secured by blockchain technology and can take many digital forms including art, videos, and music. Basically, anything that can be stored digitally can be made into an NFT,” she briefly explained. “To get started, install Metamask wallet.This is where you’ll hold both your NFTs and the cryptocurrency that you’ll use to pay for it. For my NFTs, you’ll use Ethereum (ETH). You can buy ETH from exchanges like Coins.ph, Binance, and Coinbase.”
Ethereum is a kind of cryptocurrency that is similar to Bitcoin. What makes it different is that it is “intended to be much more than simply a medium of exchange or a store of value.”
“Ethereum is different from Bitcoin in that the network can perform computations as part of the mining process,” says Ken Fromm, director of education and development at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance in a story by Forbes. “This basic computational capability turns a store of value and medium of exchange into a decentralized global computing engine and openly verifiable data store.” Currently, 1 ETH is equivalent to P229,046.22.
Heart Evangelista x Cryptopop was made available online through Open Sea from Nov.4 to 18, 2021, and it showcased two of her artworks made more special with sound and visual effects. Dubbed “Desiderantium” and “Pluviam,” these artworks were made by Heart during the pandemic, while everyone was in lockdown.
“Like many people, the lockdown was a time of great transition for me. Suddenly, everything going on in my busy life slowed down and for the first time, I was able to be still and contemplate the huge changes that were going on,” she said. “Painting these pieces was so therapeutic and helped me process the crazy time we went through. I feel these pieces immortalize what I, and probably many of you, felt during the lockdowns. Hopefully, we never have to go through anything like that again, but I think it’s important we have art like these NFTs that commemorate what we went through and eventually overcame.”
“I’m so proud of this remix, which I worked on with Luis Bueneventura, one of the Philippines’ most talented NFT artists, and Rodel Colmenar, composer of the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra,” she continued. “Together, I think we created a piece that truly immortalizes the transitions, stillness, and emotions we experienced as last year’s craziness put our lives to a halt.”
After the online bidding, Luis announced the winning bidders and how much their works garnered. “My collab with Heart Evangelista sold for a total of 17.35 ETH or ₱3.6 M on Open Sea just now! High fives all around to winning bidders @goltra and AxieBoss and #cryptoartph.”
Well, this comes as no surprise at all. If you are an avid follower of the actress-artist, you should know that Heart has predicted this amount during her chat with broadcast journalist Karen Davila.
Check out Heart Evangelista x Cryptopop pieces below: