This is the latest in my handmade collage artwork, made from found pictures, using scissors and glue. Then the paper image is scanned and uploaded for minting at https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/julianhorack_collages-julescape-q3-2023_ganesh-shiva-parvati?collection=true
You can see it there along with all my other artworks in the digital gallery. This collage depicts the demigod of the Vedas, Shiva, seated center with his wife Parvati or Durga on his left. She is the superintendent of the material world, overseeing the material energy. On the left, to Shiva’s right is Ganesh the elephant headed god who is the son of Shiva in the Vedic cosmology. Seated on his mother’s lap is the demigod of war, Kartikeya, another son of Shiva.
In this way the old classic demigods of the Vedic pantheon are depicted together as a happy family. This is how life should be and how it was before the collapse of society and engineered social decay over the past generation or two. The family unit is the foundation of a sane child and thus a competent adult, all of which is collapsing in the western world, deliberately engineered by the 1% at the top who have an ulterior agenda.
That is not the point of this NFT art collage today though, merely an aside. This is another in my religious themes where I like to combine diverse religious images from different cultures. In the background of the Shiva family you can see various Medieval Christian iconography characters from the Bible. They look on from the sides, drawing the eye of the viewer to the center. This addition of smaller background bystanders is a recurring theme in my works.
Again today we see the popular pink and yellow or gold combination of colors dominating the image. Some gems lie at the feet of the demigods in offering. This is also a recurring theme of opulence and jewels that can be found in most of my collage works in the collection. It comes from being involved in cryptocurrency, where the path to fortune is paved with gold and jewels. In other words I dream of future profits on the path of progress as a cryptocurrency investor.
Also Durga, the goddess, seated beside Shiva here, is the goddess of the material energy, and the possessor of all material wealth. Shiva is the god of destruction, the lord of animals, ghosts and lower entities. Yet he is the greatest devotee of Vishnu, the god of preservation, with Brahma as god of creation (not seen here), the third of the triguna avataras, governors of the three modes of nature. The pink writing on the image labels the demigods by name. Also on the left the writing says in Sanskrit “Vaishnavanam yatha Shambhu” which means Shambhu (Shiva) is the greatest Vaishnava (Vishnu devotee).
Vishnu and Lakshmi are the primary topmost gods while Shiva and Parvati are demigods in the service of the primary gods Vishnu and Lakshmi, according to the Veda. If you look closely at the surrounding icons, you can see Christ on the top left and again getting baptised on the lower right. He is small by comparison to the central family to show their relative importance. Curiously all the icons, both central Vedic as well as flanking Christian, all have golden haloes, placed there according to the two different cultures’ artistic impressions of divine souls or saintly people. This is quite a coincidence, showing up in both completely unconnected religious cultures over the millennia in different ways. It suggests that there is a correlation, or that whatever style of practice you have on your religious or spiritual path, the concept of the enlightened ones or the haloed heads seems to be common.
The pink backdrop adds a surreal perspective to the overall image, looking like a couch made from dessert, or something sweet and otherwise very unusual or surreal. It looks as if the surrounding Christian icons are approaching from the distant background and coming towards the central family. The image is meant to be a meditation focus for the viewer who can see the deities as if seated on a throne, even the throne of the heart, if you are a Shiva devotee.
The Ganges river can be seen falling from the sky onto Shiva’s head on top. That relates to the pastime in the Veda where it is described that a hole was pierced in the upper cosmos and the river Ganges came pouring through from he heavenly realm. Shiva broke the fall of the river upon his head before it landed on the earth. A small crescent moon is seen in the hair of Shiva. All these indicators show you that this is actually Shiva and not Vishnu, although they may look similar to the untrained eye.
I have only minted three editions of this collage artwork, as usual, making two available and keeping the third for my personal portfolio collection. I also still have the paper original collage of course, and a collector can buy that too if you wish, along with the NFTs at the showroom. NFT art makes for a fine collectible asset and store of value, just like fine art used to be in the previous century. So add this iconic artwork to your collection as a meeting point of old and new cultures and images wrapped up in a revolutionary new NFT format or digital token on the blockchain.