Month: June 2022

Pure Phase #203 / Pure Phase #89

Artist: Nicklaus Hubben

Click image above to see the full-motion splendor of Pure Phase #203
Click image above to see the full-motion splendor of Pure Phase #89


Released on December 21st, 2021 on the Tezos-based generative art platform fx(hash)*, Nick Hubben’s Pure Phase is a perfectly simple piece that builds from three overlapping layers, each moving in the same harmonic time, but against each other, creating a design that is eternally out of phase; disharmonious and convergent at the same time. It’s beautiful, it’s brilliant, it’s so simple and a it remains a great example of what generative art can be.

I now own a handful of these (the cost of these at minting was the around 4$USD) but between #203 and #89 I can’t decide on which is my favorite, so I’ve included both here for you to enjoy. There are so many great variations of this piece. As of this writing, thirty or so remain on the secondary market — starting around 8tz (~$17USD).

Nicklaus has not released anything since Pure Phase on the platform, but I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. Feel free to follow him on Twitter and (fx)hash.

*full disclosure: I’ve been on the fxhash team since the early days.

Tower Of Babel (or) Social Climbing

Artist: Tim Maxwell


Tim Maxwell is a NYC-based artist that works with hand drawn lines. Lots and lots of finely-crafted, meticulous, time consuming, hand drawn lines — usually with a trusted fountain pen, on large sheets of paper. It is a very precise, redundant degree of work, but if there is one thing I love about his method it’s just this — the degree of repetition and laser-beam focus on his craft. Out of this monotonous tedium are born incredibly stunning works of art.

Tim is also a solid friend in the NFT art space. I can’t remember when we began corresponding via Twitter, but I do recall the conversation starting around an old photo of Fugazi, and moving on from there. I’ve since collected quite a few of his works. When I though of which of his pieces to showcase here, Tower of Babel jumped out at me. It’s an earlier piece of his, one that he released on the Hic Et Nunc (now Teia) marketplace, in late May of last year.

Tim often works within a few themes, occasionally containing shadowy, humanoid figures scrambling in desolate, endless landscapes. Or at gates, waiting patiently. Or climbing impossibly large staircases. He factors our vain existence as a whole here, as these figures try to climb impossible heights, and fail. Here, a tiny detail from the downloaded IPFS file:

Everyone scrambling like mad.

The piece reminds me of Orson Welles’ interpretation of The Trial, in it’s starkly contrasted, black-and-white beauty — not to mention a few themes evident in Kafka’s original: anti-individuality vs. conformed society, alienation, control, collective consciousness and humanity’s eternal struggle against it.

I am greatly looking forward to meeting Tim at NFTNYC, coming up later this month, where I hope we can chat about more than just art! Besides the work on Tezos, Tim has also released work on Nifty Gateway and Foundation, among many other places. Feel free to check out his releases and follow him on Twitter.