“Portals,” an exhibition guest curated by Lee Mason of Metageist for 1stDibs, explores the concept of the portal as a door into another realm, whether real or imagined. One of the creators, Mahima Chaudbury — also known as mvhvma — illustrates love’s transformative ability to facilitate a sweet escape through the portal in her latest collection of NFTs. We asked Mahima to answer a few questions about her background, process and art career so far.
Where did you grow up? In what way did your early life involve art?
I was born in Edmonton, north London, a pretty rough area where there weren’t many ambitious minds and a whole lot of pigeons. I grew up in council housing and spent a lot of my time secluded from the art scene because it wasn’t a hobby or career that was respected in the community that I grew up in. I spent half of my life there and then later moved to Enfield, which is still north London but on the border. This meant I had direct transport into areas outside of London where I first discovered what it was like to experience art.
I made the decision to study photography at Hertford Regional College, an art school, when I was 16, where I was exposed to so many mediums of art and a brand-new community of people who had an appreciation for creativity. Studying photography there pulled me into this contemporary digital space where I developed a keen interest in graphic design and mixed media, which led me to do a second diploma in creative media production at a college in West London and then a degree in fashion photography in East London at London Metropolitan University. The pattern here is that I was constantly traveling to different locations because I loved experiencing the art scene outside of the small bubble that I lived in and engaging in all the new mediums of art that the digital world had to offer.
What led you to begin minting your work as NFTs?
I was a part of the Twitter art community about a year prior to my entrance into the NFT world. A few of my mutuals began tokenizing their works, and I grew intrigued so I asked around and had conversations about how and why they were doing it. My partner, Tom Orchard, also had a big part to play in guiding me through this new concept and explaining NFT jargon, which I initially struggled to get my head around. To be completely honest, the money and opportunities that my artist peers were being rewarded with through NFTs had pulled me into the space, but the community made me stay. And once I had an understanding of how advanced blockchain technology really was, I knew that I was in it for the long run.
Tell us more about your creative process and inspirations.
It depends on the day, because sometimes I just draw and conceptualize as I go. Once the strokes and lines start forming shape, the idea for the piece forms in my head and I know exactly what the central theme will be. But sometimes I feel intense emotion and have no other way of expressing myself so I project those feelings outwardly through my work. Sometimes my art is built out of raw emotion and sometimes I have to go searching for it. There is a lot of psychological research that goes into my art because naturally, I’m very aware of my emotions. I often study my subconscious and analyze behavioral theory that is influenced by my mental state. This applies to my art, as I analyze my state of mind during the time of creation, which later helps in finalizing the detailing of the piece.
What are you hoping to see in the next five years in the NFT space?
I believe NFTs will lead to the advancement and growth of a state-of-the-art new creator economy. Not just that, but they will be a verification method for a plethora of real-world transactions such as real estate, licensing papers, gaming, esports, etc. The transparency that NFTs provide is enough alone to account for proof of ownership of any real-world item, and the easy transition of asset ownership is perfect for uses of transferability and authenticity. In five years from now, I hope to see more fractional ownership opportunities implemented in community-owned projects that we can take to the top with community support and for the world to utilize this brilliant technology and build safer forms of transaction in real-world settings.
What role does the NFT community play in your career as a digital artist?
I’m currently working in the NFT space as an art manager, so it blends into my individual career as an artist because I use my position to try and help find artists opportunities and bridge the gap between corporate industries and smaller artists. I handpick artists who I believe would be best suited for the client and produce drop strategies that assist in releasing NFTs to newcomers of the crypto art community. My entire career, both personally and professionally, is built on doing my best to help the community and learning from them to better my sense of understanding of this new and exciting space. So I would say it plays a pretty important role.
If you could be quoted as saying one thing about your work, what would it be?
My art reflects my subconscious. It’s freeing to be able to transcribe my ugliest and most beautiful thoughts to the world.