NFT brings the digital world and art into a new realm, and the connection between the physical and the digital has always been a fascination for me. Throughout my career as an artist, 20 years and counting, I have seen some of my works that used to exist physically be wiped away naturally by weather over time, and now only exist in a digital form. NFT deepens this fascination and connection, and to further explore how the physical interacts with the digital, and opposite, I decided to make an "NFT" version of one of my most popular and established physical paintings, "The Lovers".
"The Lovers" motive appeared on a city wall in Bryne, Norway March 12th 2020, the day before Norway went into national covid19-lockdown. Once released for sale it was sold out instantly as limited prints and canvas paintings, to all over the world.

Since the last month I have worked on painting a new version of "The Lovers" but with a pink NFT background to make it distinct from the existing physical versions. The painting was then photographed, before I worked on it digitally and remade the image into this final piece that was minted to an edition of 50. The painting itself has been burnt, to symbolize what once existed physically, now only exists digitally. This is the video of that burning.

With this I want to further explore the concept of the physical vs the digital. Who are the collectors of the physical versions? Who are the collectors of the digital versions? How to they relate to each other? How will the physical collectors respond to the new digital version? And how will the digital collectors respond to the fact that an existing version exists? And will the two interact and relate in any way at all?