Maranasati means mindfulness of death, and is a Buddhist meditation practice that may use visualization to meditate on the nature of death. We sometimes shy away from the concept of death and avoid talking about our own mortality, yet embracing it can be quite liberating. This image of a skeleton smoking is a great visualization to provoke maranasati.

I used Van Gogh's satirical painting as a reference image, adapting it with my own style. As an artist I’ve continued to co-opt this as an iconographic image for my work through repetition in stickers, paste-ups, murals, prints, and now NFTs. I could not think of a more perfect genesis for LinoBlocks.