Gallery work
Story and context
82 × 152 cm oil and metallic acrylics on 230 individual hand-painted, hand-cut, hand-laid 5 x 5 cm layered ink-wash paper tiles affixed to hardboard
Conceived in Chengdu: the historical home of the world’s first paper money (Jiaozi), the piece was Matt Vegh's attempt to give physical form to the idea of blockchain: a tradeable, trackable, interchangeable asset that was still, first and foremost, a work of art you could hang on a wall and live with.
Though its origins began in 2015, it premiered at the Golden Panda International Design and Creativity Week 2017 (where Matt Vegh received his first Golden Panda Design Excellence Award) and later appeared at Art Canton. At the time, almost no one outside China was paying attention to what was happening in Chengdu’s art and design scene. Looking back, it stands as one of the earliest pure expressions of what the market would later call RWA and phygital art, created years before the NFT explosion.
Rights or provenance
created by Matt Vegh and now in his main collection at his Chengdu Studio Gallery
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