Get This Man a Car! Time Discusses His Latest Collection.

Waves of pixels morphing into windscreens, tires, bonnets and headlights. Rolling landscapes and strange characters. Enter the world of Time’s ‘Cars’ collection – where the automobile and the pixel reign supreme. 

This collection of 2,000 NFTs is, in many ways, a road trip through Time’s creative career to date, with many pieces drawing on different periods of his work. Whether it’s an abstract maze or a friendly-looking demon, each car speaks to a different part of his practice as a whole. We spoke with Time about the process and inspiration behind this collection.

‘Cars’ is live on Rarible on Feb. 21st. Minting on Etherlink for 1.5 XTZ

A lifelong artist

Growing up in Montevideo, Uruguay, Time (Santiago) always knew he wanted to create. From a young age he was drawing and was encouraged to explore a career in the arts. As a young man he studied painting with famous Uruguayan painter Marcelo Legrand, whose influence on Time has been huge. 

“Legrand had a big yard in Montevideo, and his brother would throw these punkish parties. There was this fun scene around them, with self-published poetry books and creative gatherings.

I’d be there drawing everything, in the yard of a very important painter… Eventually, he took me in as a student and a friend. I took classes with him every Wednesday for two or three years. That was 12 years ago, and it was an incredible experience.” 

These early years were pivotal in developing Time’s style and passion for art.

Finding NFTs

In recent years Time left the city and lives with his family in a rural town, where he works as a digital artist in web3. While physical painting is still an important part of his creative process, he considers himself a fully digital artist now.

“For a while I was painting only for myself, and the dream of selling my art felt like it was slipping away. I had accepted that. Then, when I had a kid and had even less space to paint, I started making digital art. Now, it is my main practice. I still paint as a part of my artistic process. It just doesn’t show up as much in my Web3 work.”

The birth of ‘Cars’

In some ways, this is a collection born out of frustration, and complaining. Time’s own beloved car is a source of joy and pain, and is the seed of inspiration for this project.

“So, I really love my car – a Peugeot 505. It was my grandpa's car and it breaks all the time. It's a big problem for me every day. And it’s become kind of a whole thing in my life. It's like when I feel like complaining, the car is on the list, even if there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s like a symbol. So, it became a big part of my life.”

A few weeks ago Time jokingly tweeted that he would launch a Pump.Fun token and rug everyone so he could pay for repairs on his car. (The token did launch, but nobody was rugged). When a friend suggested maybe an NFT collection would work better, Time took the idea and ran with it.

This was a pretty unique experience for Time - working to a theme or brief - but it brought out a whole different creative energy.

“I think NFTs often come with certain themes or opportunities—like, ‘Here’s this concept, try to fit into it’—but I’ve never really done that. I just do my thing and try to sell it. It can feel frantic on the Twitter timeline, but somehow, it works.”

An initial round of cars were hand-crafted in various forms and landscapes, before AI tools were used to generate more outputs.

“At least 20 were actually hand-drawn. I then fed those into MidJourney to blend them, along with some of my previous AI works and other drawings, whether car-related or not. I fed lots of my work and various images in, and let the machine chew on them. Over a couple of weeks of iterations, thinking, re-creating, I ended up with the full collection.” 

“A friend pointed out that the collection resembles the look of Stable Diffusion 1.4. Some pieces have that feel, right? It’s similar to what MidJourney does with pixel art—it tries to interpret it but distorts it in a way that creates a unique texture. The people who helped me appreciate that kind of texture as beautiful are two very active artists on Tezos: Gozo and Skomra.”

Happy Hunting

Something you can’t help but notice about Time, if you spend some time with him or his art (or on his Twitter!), is that there is a great sense of joy and playfulness in his work. 

“I think I need to decompress cuz I take art super seriously. I have to somehow stop it from becoming solemn, so I became stupid to the extreme. It was my way of coping with it!”

There are some real gems scattered throughout this collection - moments of whimsy and fun that are well-worth hunting for. Or maybe you’re into expressive pixel work. Or strange landscapes, or interesting characters, or vibrant colors – whatever you fancy, this collection’s got it all.

🚗 ‘Cars’ is live on Rarible on Friday 21st. Minting on Etherlink for 1.5 XTZ, be sure to load up your wallet and join the ride. See here for more info on how to mint on Etherlink.