Cryptic Gardens

Alex Konstad is an American conceptual artist and illustrator from the forests of Portland Oregon. He has a broad background in CG and worked with Blizzard Entertainment, ShieldBreak Games, Reelfx, Psyop FX, Games Workshop, SpinMaster Toys, and Sony Online Entertainment.


Konstad is actively interested in plotlines that can be characterized as dreamlike. Some of his series depict imaginary worlds steeped in anxious mystique. The theme of the garden occupies a special place for him, and it is here that the artist's creative imagination fully manifests itself. The garden as a space undoubtedly represents an (un)real place, relating mundane and divine, chaos and order, tranquility and voluptuousness. *Cryptic Gardens* is undoubtedly inspired by Bosch's *Garden of Earthly Delights*, but it does not speculate too heavily on the original plot. Konstad departs from Bosch's deliberate multifacetedness and carefully populates the work with mythical creatures and lost people in space. The central figure, a headless and limbless martyr/preacher, is "grown" into the landscape. The horizon, as well as the color scheme, with hints of sfumato and a uniquely arranged light source, is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s *Mona Lisa*.

The Shepherd of the Painted Gardens. The first in the "Cryptic Gardens" Series. Garden Token holders will be eligible for exclusive airdropped garden tokens.

Digital Painting (photoshop + ganbreed)
2022

Shepherd of the Painted Gardens

Lord of The Seas

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Many Worlds Interpretation

Triptych - 1. Januar

The idea of paradise comes from the old persian Pairi-daêza, which means ‘walled enclosure’, a place to live in harmony. Humans have always aimed to tame and organise the living to make sense of the complexity of the world and dominate their own fear of otherness. 

Terrestrial paradises have become spaces to manufacture the world to our own image and what started in an enclosed space, has spilled beyond the borders of the Hortus Conclusus, walled garden, and has been applied to the planet. This collection of works depicting exalted, romantic and cosmic imagery of nature offer in their respective ways a critique, an observation or a proposition to re-imagine our position in the world.

They also introduce ideas of what is visible or invisible to the human eye, what networks can we establish to evolve in a more collaborative existence and enter a state of co-creation with the more than human and remind us of the danger of  enhancing nature to an augmented reality state outside of the metaverse.


Pairi-daêza ~  A world of Paradise(s) 

An exalted, romantic and cosmic imagery of nature.

A.D. 2000: Crucifixion

Saint Nakamoto

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Judgment of Life

Worshippers of Ether

For most of its history, art served ritual and the spiritual life of humanity. From cave paintings in Altamira to the Bactrian princesses, the Fayum portraits, medieval miniatures, Renaissance paintings, and beyond, all these cultural precedents were largely associated with the spiritual life of society.


In general terms, over time any community generates properties through autopoietic means that are adequate for society as a whole—establishing hierarchies, economic relationships, creating marginal strata, building pantheons of heroes, and seeking spiritual and religious foundations of varying degrees of depth and seriousness. The crypto community is no exception, especially the part of it that is directly involved in the production of images, namely, the artists.


However, it is important to consider that Web 3 is not only a cryptographic and economic project but also an ideological and visual project that succeeds internet culture with its rich visual, contextual, and associative language. It is evident that the crypto community is currently experiencing a tremendous surge of interest. Artists and creators are engaged in the search for spiritual foundations and the creation of synthetic images in which Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu symbols and heroes are sometimes integrated or communicated with characters that have sacred significance for the crypto world, whether it be Vitalik Buterin or Elon Musk (as the most obvious examples). The significance, quality, and meaning of these new experimental images are yet to be assessed, and this large narrative actively awaits its investigator.

Shepherd of the Painted Gardens

Cryptic Gardens

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