I DRAW LINES
Tim Maxwell creates highly distinctive drawings in the NFT space. His drawings are a confluence of orchestrated lines. Some works take up to 200 hours to complete. The results are awe-inspiring and at times disorienting, an unusual yet seamless fit for the blockchain.
“I try to create these environments that emulate a real space, usually tunnels, which are ambiguous and suspended signifiers with myriads of interpretation. The tunnel fits hand and glove as a metaphor as we embrace a social, economic and cultural paradigm shift, a new milieu, the unknown journey.
“The viewer applies their own experience to the work.” Asked about his drawing process and his inspirations, he explains: “I briefly sketch out an idea, then draw it line by line.” Maxwell states, “These lines are circular not straight.” These circular lines are a balancing mechanism which gives an illusion of an effortless straight line. An effortless journey constantly reorienting itself.
He has over 25 years experience of drawing and has a plethora of sketchbooks filled with his art and musings. He first began his art journey at 18 as a tattoo artist, later earning a masters degree of fine art in nyc. He found web3 and the NFT space much later at the age of 43 in 2021. The NFT space equipped him with new tools enabling him to share his voice to a much wider audience. Without web3, Tim would never have found the community and support to share his art and ideas, which was eschewed within the confines of an academic and insulated contemporary NYC art world. Web3 provided him with creative autonomy that was never before possible.
According to Tim, web3 embodies a punk rock ethos..This movement, unlike earlier counter cultural youth movements, grew organically and created a voice to the previous voiceless. Money was not the motive. A counterculture that unites likeminded peoples within the globe and not the gates. “We’re essentially winging everything we do in this space because there hasn’t been any precedent without holding the hand of history. It’s this lack of authority that drives it passionately and relentlessly forward.
When asking Tim about the growth of this industry and the art marketplace, he explains, “It’s a problem. Profit motivated individuals will try to shoehorn history and canonize artists in three years which organically world normally take thirty. This inhibits natural personal growth and innovation which is vital for its success. The need for investors to profit from its investments is advantageous in any capitalist system in which profiteering will drain the spirit of cultural crypto. Investors posturing as collectors are truncating art history for economic advantage and profit at the expense of cultural and inner growth of the movement itself. The point of web3 and NFT art isn’t to accumulate assets and money but to accumulate cultural ideas as assets to drive the spirit of humanity forward to positive social change. To change the state, the world.”
His lines connect people, artists and communities in ways we aspire for. We hope…