One thing that’s cliched way too much in pop-culture is the portrayal of a dystopian world when it comes to the futuristic style. Do we always have to be so pessimistic towards our future?
Let’s flip this side altogether; if we are to imagine our future…
Why not do it in the cloak of aesthetics, around a subliminal aura, with the chirps of a soft hazy voice. Well, thankfully Grimes is letting us be a part of this superlunary world not just through her music but also with her NFTs too.
About The Artist
Born on March 17, 1988 in Vancouver, Grimes (real name Claire Elise Boucher) is a popular Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer.
Having five studio albums under her name, her music has pervaded multifaceted genres, including dream pop, electronic, R&B, and hip hop, while touching on science fiction and feminist themes.
The artist herself has confessed going down the rabbit hole to discover music in her early twenties and take up music as her career.This happened when she was still pursuing a degree in neuroscience and Russian language at McGill University but left the university in early 2011 before finishing her degree.
However, one can safely say that the scientific fantasies caught up with her soon, sometimes in the form of visuals in her music and now in her NFT themes..
Her NFT Artworks
She embarked on her NFT journey with her collections revolving around the thematic WarNymph, who is the Goddess of Neo-Genesis.
WarNymph is presented in her earliest visual form in this first limited edition NFT release and would evolve as part of a broader, Oth3rkin universe. A part of the proceeds from the WarNymph NFT sales will be donated to Carbon 180, an NGO dedicated to reducing carbon emissions.
Her NFTs are a visual embodiment of mythology, science fiction and fantasy (but fortunately not the ones to put you into a dystopian paranoia), subliminal enough to transport you into another world.
WarNymph Collection Vol 1 Open Editions By Grimes x Mac
WarNymph Collection Vol 1 Open Editions is a window to the artist’s perceptive world that captures both- the out of world elements and human’s mythological subconsciousness.
The NFTs included in the collection are:
- Mars
- Earth
Mars
In her trademark futuristic style, Mars gives a glimpse of the artist Grimes’ creative rarity. A cherub over the Red Planet is shown flying with a weapon in its hand. The soft reddish radiance reflecting on the cherub gives the ever more ethereal sight a little more surrealism. With the angelic audio, one is certainly transported into this celestial doorway.
The NFTs were originally listed at $7,500.00 in an open Edition of 7 minutes. During this short time span, 388 editions were minted, generating $2.9 Million.
Earth
This dynamic NFT shows earth rotating along its axis with stars chiming in the space.
A cherub is seen holding a weapon towards earth. The cherub has blue eyes reflecting the blue Earth. The rotation of the planet captures the process of day and night as is evident with the lights on the part of the world that turns pink with the dawning sunrise.
One can see the ‘Planetshine’ around the planet giving it a beautiful halo effect. The NFTs were originally listed at $7,500.00 in an open Edition of 7 minutes. During this short time span, 303 editions were minted, generating $2.2 Million.
WarNymph Collection Vol 1 By Grimes x Mac
The WarNymph Collection Vol 1 is an artistic blend of sci-fi, gamer fantasy, and apocalyptic concepts.
The NFTs included in the collection are:
- Newborn 1
- Newborn 2
- Newborn 3
- Newborn 4
- Death of the Old
- Battle of the WarNymphs
- Gods in Hi-res
- Rokoko Monolith
Death of the old
Death of the old is the most expensive single edition NFT by Grimes. It was sold for a massive $388,938.00 on Nifty. The video has the background score of Anhedonia by Grimes playing.
The setting in the video art piece is on mountains with ruins. The radiance of pastel palettes brings more to the magic realism of the art piece Two cherubs flying and glowing against the magical pink ‘aureoles’ around them, reaching out their little hands to each other.
The play of light and shadow adds a dramatic element to the artpiece. The gradient shades on the mountains give them a hazy effect and as the video goes on, one can literally feel the ‘transportation’ to the other world. The video ends with a spiralling down effect (as goes the lyrics of the background score- Anhedonia). And it ends with many cherubs flying around a white halo of cross.
Battle of the WarNymphs
Battle of War Nymphs (10 editions) sold for $40,000.00 is amongst the more expensive NFTs by Grimes.
Although by her own confession WarNymphs are Grimes’ own digital avatar, here it portrays cherubs being the warriors in the war of Nymphs.
The grave state of war is represented with a pitch black backdrop.
As the name suggests, the cherubs are seen flying around with weapons. However, the aura around cherubs in this NFT is missing; thus subtly revealing ‘loss of innocence’ in war. However, the expression on each of these cherubs is different thus implying that war can be different for different people.
The bright pop of pink, blue, green is quite a popular tone in digital illustrations. The other imprints of sci-fi fantasy art are in the images of capsule horn and chain-like structures.
One of the features that stands out in the NFT is the ‘edgy’ wings , giving the cherub a menacing presence in the backdrop.
Motifs and Style
Just like her vocals, Grimes’s NFT artworks are soothing letters in a utopian futuristic story(unlike the conventional sci-fi that revolves around dystopias).
The soft palettes, celestial settings, sci-fi motifs through her NFTs provide a glimpse into her unique creative intellect.
Just like her vocals, Grimes introduces ‘a soothing flow’ in her artwork with colours that have a halo-like effect. Also, while doing so, she employs elements from the futuristic sphere to express her own ‘intellectual stimulation towards science’. So, when one observes recurring cherubs, a spirit of infinite rebirth is evoked through the state of infancy.
Even though mythological overtones hold prominent attention in her artworks, cable wires, capsules and other mechanical props provide a juxtaposing harmony to ‘Art and technology’. This reflects her own views towards co-thriving of both these fields.
As for her technique, Merging the raw images of a photogrammetry scan are merged and outlining her iconic tattoos, with a retopologized mesh that was sculpted, modelled, and morphed into different forms before being permanently imprinting into the body of a baby angel, a cherub.
Thus, she lets her fans have a sneak peek into her metaverse – with an alternate version of tech-mythological coupling!!
Whether it is singing or producing music or her NFTs, in all her artistic pursuits Grimes has followed no one but her true self. No wonder the result is a novel masterpiece every time.
While NFT artworks are a mode of unfiltered expression, for Grimes her NFTs are altogether a world of her thoughts.
Thanks to Miss Anthropocene and her novel artistic epoch, the future looks ethereal! And all we know is that pure magic is created when the Artist is the Muse and the Muse an Artist!!
