This new collection of 1/1 NFTs is actually a novel in 13 chapters, the illustrations for each of which are minted as NFTs. The 13 chapters describe characters, anecdotes, situations and memories that the artist has encountered on his travels over the last 22 years, through America, Europe and Asia. These reminiscences are woven together in traditional storytelling style, employing reality enriched by fiction, reflecting the artists interests in the work of J L Borges, Joseph Conrad, Milan Kundera and Franz Kafka. 

Though the stories are predominantly set in his current hometown Kuala Lumpur, the characters and situations draw upon a variety of experiences gleaned from periods also spent living in Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Bangkok, Sheffield and London. 

Hersoid‘s art is manufactured from memories, reminiscences and experiences witnessed during his foot-stepping through the humble everyday and the banal. The minutiae of the everyday feeds his library of anecdotes, and is woven with characters whose apparent impotence in the greater workings of humanity only draws his attention ever closer to their fascinating and relentless struggle to exist. 

Anthony Gormley famously collected North Sea salt water for his Royal Academy exhibition, and juxtaposed it with 30 tonnes of Cornish clay. Such shaman-like adoration for intangible properties seems a logical focus for an artist to follow, but for Hersoid, the storm wind collected in a bottle from the Outer-Hebrides feels like cheating: anyone can make art from such majestic materials, but the true skill is in appointing similar significance to  events and circumstances that through no fault of their own do not have the majesty of storms or elemental forces but are mundane and day-to-day. As such, he gleans his material from the detritus of experience- the forgotten moments just after an event of significance – the expression on the face once the cameras have turned away, the discovery of a worthless coin in an empty multi storey car park. And into this grey his art is to weave, with liberal abandon, the free-roaming fantasy of fiction- the improbable jostles with the unlikely and the impossible for a role in his stories. Chapters freely borrow from continents and decades at opposite ends of his life, and melt into a possibly pointless crescendo. 

The 13 chapters belonging to this collection are being written as the project develops, evolving ‘on the hoof’ as the artist finds them in his everyday. Part One – the first four chapters – have been collected, written and drawn in the Monsoon season of Kuala Lumpur. 

A roadmap – an actual map of the city itself – indicates the sequencing of the remaining parts of the novel, though geography falls foul of fiction here as physical locations indicated do not necessarily relate to the locations outlined in the stories. It does however give clues as to the progress of the novel’s production. 

Chapter I

Chapter II

It’s all very well creating, making – doing – but what happened once the creative process has concluded? Put it another way – ‘what’s the point?’. This is a question that many people- not just creatives – have to wrestle with on a regular basis – a quest for purpose and meaning to justify their activities. Poor mental health and conditions associated with unhappiness can almost certainly be correlated with lifestyles and routines that lack purpose, satisfaction or meaningful output. For the creative, the sense of ‘why are you doing this’ is as fundamental as ‘how are you doing this’ (essentially the unique skills that you have spent your life sharpening that have allowed you to lead a creative career).

At this stage, all I am willing to do is lift the corner of the first page of that giant volume – the question of ‘why’ – by sharing a small exercise in composition. Having spent the last few years exploring analogue photography with my humble 35mm Russian point and shoot, I have amassed a small library of photos for which no immediate purpose seems to exist. Taken under the umbrella of a variety of different projects, but mostly a wider scheme known as ‘The Parables of Nick the Baptist’, they seem to lack coherent subject or theme. As such, they are fairly purposeless, but in that there is a magical potential that allows them to ‘speak freely’ in a variety of semiotic contexts.

And sometimes, you just have to loosen the shackles of serious intention, turn your back on deliberate conscious creativity and fuck about a bit. Just have a go. See what happens. This is a useful strategy if you are willing to be un-precious about the result. This isn’t supposed to be great. It is not supposed to address anything grand or thought-provoking. In fact it doesn’t really address anything at all. What it does do, in my opinion, is raise a smile. It has a sort of humour that I tend to seek out in others’ work, and that I seldom achieve in my own. It is a small exercise – a sketch – and nothing more.

Enjoy!

I am very excited to be sharing some new artworks as crypto editions on the marketplaces Rarible and Mintable.

These hand crafted digital mosaic vectors are painstakingly produced using methods that echo the techniques pioneered by the Mesopotamians nearly 3000 years ago. For me it is very poignant that an ancient technique such as this is employed in this new and emerging landscape- with crypto art currently such a divisive concept in the artworld.

Each geometric element – in this particular series tessellating triangles – is hand rendered to match its source material… usually found images from vintage photographic collections that I have amassed on my travels in Brazil, Thailand and China. The vector mosaics are rendered element by element to make the finished digital file, which is then made available as a Non Fungible Token on the Ethereum blockchain.

Unfortunately at present gas prices to actually mint the NFTs are excruciatingly high – but with the mosaic production process taking as long as it does, having to wait until prices fall will not slow down the release of new pieces as each one actually takes ages!

https://rarible.com/token/0x60f80121c31a0d46b5279700f9df786054aa5ee5:629546:0xd592a0786ae4324835e67e3b5c67675c9b7d293a

https://opensea.io/assets/0x60f80121c31a0d46b5279700f9df786054aa5ee5/629546

We are taking bookings for virtual private views of Nick Hersey’s new exhibition ‘Handstyle’. The viewings involve a 1 to 1 discussion with the artist, a private link to an exclusive online gallery and a special purchase arrangement for collectors and investors.

To register an interest, please click here

Thank you.

Tony has a discerning eye. Tony get his news from sources outside the mainstream. Tony likes to express himself not with the trinkets and baubles of a shallow consumer system, but with unusual and arresting objects that inspire him. The things that surround Tony are carefully selected, lovingly cared for and regularly appreciated, because Tony doesn’t have room in his life for short-lived chaff, or disposable sentiments. He chooses things, people, experiences, because they form a connection – between him and somewhere, some time or some feeling that has made a memory worth cherishing. You can tell all of this by looking at the things that Tony surrounds himself with. Nowadays people call this ‘curating’. Curating your wardrobe, your music collection, your salad at lunchtime, for fuck’s sake. Call it what you like- Tony doesn’t call it anything. Tony’s not into fads like that. Tony is just happy to have found a limited edition giclee print that for some reason he kinda likes.

And that is certainly true of the Hersoid website. This carefully crafted impression of chaos and disorder is aimed at recreating the pleasure of a shitty junk shop in the anodyne environment of the digital age.

Keep checking back to see how we’re getting on, eh?