Secret Society - (Art Explosion Week 23 : Conspiracy)

Here is my submission for the week 23 artexplosion contest organized by Hive account@juliakponsford.

This piece is a digital painting that I realized a few months ago.

The process involves 6 different mediums/steps :

Concept, idea and rough sketch of the look of the final desired image.
Original Portrait photoshoot of the couple shot with studio light.
Conception of the background in the Vue software.
Integration of the original picture in the rendered 3D background.
Hand painting with a tablet on top of the initial composite image in Painter, many different brushes and layers have been necessary to achieve the final result.
Color grading.

I never time myself but I would estimate the total time to finish the piece from scratch at around 10-15 hours. (3D rendering non included)

Now let's talk about the interpretation :

Most of the people around me don't know nothing about cryptocurrencies or the Burning Man philosophy and its core values. Two things that have taken a major place in my life in the past years. I basically evolve almost only with burners and it's been now almost one year that I dove into blockchain, reading about it and investing in cryptocurrencies. It could seem strange to people to someone attending an event that banned money from its use to be passionate by crypto currencies... But the fundamental idea of the blockchain technology is not so far than the Burning Man principles :
It facilitate the share of the economy, it allows people to exchange value instantly. It encourages transparency, it disrupts useless 3rd parties, and to finish it tends to bring the value back to the people that actually created it.
This being said, I somehow have this sensation to live in a parallel world with specific codes and habits, a bit like a Secret Society. In the mean time I can't remove this idea of my head, that we fight everyday against a global conspiracy represented by the Establishement :
It privileges everyday wealthy people, our current societal model make the poor being more poor, there is clearly something going wrong with the redistribution of global wealth. Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain tech are an absolute amazing way to change our old outdated models. That is why I try to promote it everyday around me, I am convinced that it's the tool that will allow people of the world to regain more power and stand for their rights.

Gilles Bonugli Kali http://gbk.photos

Thanks to these great artists and friends : Shannon Shiang and Peter to have allowed this image to exist being my models for this project.

This image has been giclée printed on a photo paper (Size is 110x110 cm), framed to be exposed at the client's house.
It's a unique 1/1. edition