Curated Real World Assets Web3

The following backgrounder is regarding my upcoming "Curated RWA" Web3 Collection. As one of the very few artists in the world who do "phygital" Collections, combining the sale of NFT's tied to deliverable original physical works of art, I am always looking to expand the boundaries of this space with new and innovative ideas. But first, let me provide a synopsis of the origin story.

In the summer of 2015, I began painting as a natural progression from the publishing industry I had been a part of for many years, from being the co-founding foreign editor of the first English language newspaper in Western China, to publishing a series of bilingual graphic novels which were distributed by Xinhua, as well as founding the Sichuan Travel Guide, the first fully-licensed foreign owned magazine in Western China, founding the number 3 expat web forum in China, and then also adapting my graphic novels to my first screenplay trilogy based on the archaeological discovery of San Xing Dui and Jinsha Ruins, which subsequently adorned the cover of the Hollywood Reporter at Cannes 2015 (Cannes Daily Number One).

In 2016, I began creating my version of a Mosaic crypto-currency, which was, in hindsight one of the first, what the Web3 market would consider to be RWA's. The final piece was put together from works I had started as early as the fall of 2015, well before CryptoKitties or CryptoPunks kicked off the NFT craze that has continued to this day, albeit, in a very strange tri-polarization of a corporate-led wash-trading cabal on one side (manipulating trading like anybody's business) and the more traditional community based smaller "art and culture" based NFT projects, as well as what I would call the honest builders, such as the #Confluence Universe, which does not gouge its holders for fairy dust "lands" in the infinite landscapes of the Metaverse.

The painting I finished in 2016, which was the first of my "Mosaic" series, was exhibited at the 2017 Golden Panda International Design and Creativity Week in the city of Chengdu.

There was another painting that I exhibited at this show, which was the first of another one of my painting series known as "Four Seasons Abstract", which has been and remains to this day one of my biggest sellers as far as series and styles. This painting won the "Design Excellence" award as adjudicated by iF Germany, one of the world's premier design firms. This was the first of 3 Golden Panda International Design Awards which my artworks have won (2017-2019).

Earlier in 2017 I had held my first solo exhibition and workshop in the prestigious Chengdu IFS Garden Gallery. It is important to note that I had only been painting for one year when the Dean of Sichuan University's Art Department asked me to mentor his Master's students in experimental abstracts. He Gong wrote the foreword for my "Hidden Gem" Solo Exhibition and also purchased the first work at that exhibition, which kicked off a massive surge in sales of my work, which has not ceased and now stands at an incredible 867 original works of art sold since that show in April of 2017.

I can only attribute the appeal to the market for my paintings as coming from their total distinctness from other painters. From Hong Kong to Shanghai and at the Tokyo Met, if you attend an expo you will see all of this traditional beautiful artwork and then you will see this weirdo doing abstract works where you cannot tell how he created that. That is me. I am not a trained painter. I do not tick the boxes of progressive gallerists and I really don't want to, either. I outsell most of the top Canadian auction houses and they are selling paintings by famous dead people! I never studied anything about art or art history and so there are no third-party influences on my work, except when I am doing deliberate crossover pieces and collabs with other artists, which I have done and continue to do.

In my working studio gallery in Chengdu, I support artists, both local and international, including a number of disadvantaged or disabled artists. My studio provides commercial space, materials, canvas, paints, sales support and mentorship completely free of charge as a way of paying it forward. One of the artists I support Ms. Wang Huang Rong is hearing and speech impaired and I have sold many of her paintings, with all proceeds going to her, and with which she can support her family.

My studio in Chengdu also supports many charitable causes, including providing artwork for charitable art auctions for organizations such as Rotary, Hopeful Hearts, Children's SOS Village (an orphanage in Sichuan) and many more. Artworks from my studio have raised funds for specific needs as well including for children in need of special surgeries, for underprivileged women and children in the poorer rural regions of western Sichuan and Nepal, and for educational needs such as scholarships for minority University aged young adults including Tibetan students.

I say this to let people know, that when I do the Curated RWA Road Show in China, we will be visiting many of these areas and supporting the traditional and cultural arts and crafts industries among the many groups represented in the rural areas. Products that deserve a wider audience, which we will provide through our Confluence Universe platform which has live-streaming and broadcasting capabilities already built in the form of our SimSuite Cinema.

With a very solid track record of sales and of doing alot of support and charitable work which directly impacts the lives of many people, we hope that our "Curators" in our RWA project will come along for the ride with us on the New Silk Road Show and learn about the arts and culture in these special places. Not just in small and out of the way areas, but also galleries, conventions and events in the big dynamic cities like Chengdu and many others.

With my very close connections to the publishing industry and having done a number of special livestreams with my two bilingual sons, such as for the FISU World Games, Chinese National Holiday, UNESCO Global Tourism Conference and the recent Chengdu Sci-fi WorldCom event, garnering 800k real-time viewers and over 25 million views in a single day, the Confluence and the Curated RWA Collection's New Silk Road Show will similarly benefit. This type of show promoting artists and artisans and their products around China to a global audience can easily lead to sponsorships and promotions for furthering the market audience.

With all of these components in place and having operated in China for 24 years, holder of a rare Chinese Green Card (a bonafide Unicorn! try getting one of those!) I have the know-how and boots on the ground to make this project a success. So, back to the beginning and let's roll out what this Curated RWA project is about.

When it comes to phygital drops, I am no stranger, having done a Mosaic NFT drop, which outsold on a per piece basis, Damien Hirst's "the Currency". I use his as a comparison because they were dropped around the same time period. If you compared his prices of $2k USD to mine for a similar sized work, my Mosaic phygital works would be more than 5x times the price.

Buyers of my Mosaic NFT's were buying 3x3cm Mosaic tiles for between $350-$480 USD at the time and then they were able to group them together in minimum groups of 9. They then could "crystalize" their tiles, submit them to our website and I would create the new physical work based on their selections and ship the finished works to them worldwide. This work below which is considerably smaller than Damien's works, sold for between $8,750 USD to $12,000 USD depending on the price that buyer paid per 3x3cm tile.

Other buyers bought smaller groupings of Mosaic Tile such as this group of 9 below:

All works were numbered, signed, stamped and dated by me.

And here is what the NFT's coinciding with those physical tiles looked like. they each were a painting unto themselves. This one is one of my faves, called the Hooded Figure in Blue.

In 2023, I also made physical artwork rewards a part of the Confluence core Collections which are the UBots, UASO Gen 1's and OG Space Dragons. 30+ physical works of art valued at over $200k have already been shipped to our holders as rewards, including our UASO Quadrants Galactica series and our New Era Mosaics pictured below:

Over the next few weeks, we will come up with the rollout program for the "Curator" NFT's. we plan to have Golden Curator, Platinum Curator and Diamond Curator levels, with perhaps a Patron of the Arts "Ultimate" Curator.

Each level will be allocated with the appropriate RWA's, such as one physical painting shipped to the Golden Curator, plus an allocation of 3 additional paintings which they will "curate" for sale and share in the revenues, the same as a gallery or other agent would, aided of course by my access to the vast market in which I am situated and the resulting sales which come from that geographical advantage. The Chinese Art Market is huge and although it has slowed due to the lingering effects of Covid, it is still very robust in the price ranges in which my works sell. There is absolutely no shortage of venues that would host a foreign artist. I have spent time in many of these places as evidenced below such as the CEO Art Auction at the Shanghai Bellagio where my works achieved the 2nd, 3rd and 4th highest hammer prices of the evenings, only being eclipsed by a very well-known local Chinese Calligraphy Master.

this article is not finished...

will get back to it as soon as possible!

cheers!