💥 You’ll finally understand NFTs with ARTE! 💻🎨

Immerse yourself in a real artistic uproar with ARTE’s latest report on NFTs, a revolution that’s shaking up the art world. It’s a subject that’s raising many questions within the artistic community.

This report takes you to meet a host of contributors, from artists to gallerists to investors. Together, they reveal the origins of NFTs and share their views on their relevance, their future, and their growing influence in the art world. Obviously, opinions are divided!

For the past two years, I’ve been immersed in this subject, convinced that digital art opens up new creative horizons. It offers artists the chance to explore uncharted territory, giving us access to unique visual experiences.

At the last Lille Art Up contemporary art fair, I was particularly captivated by the space dedicated to digital art. I was particularly fascinated by Koy Dirk ‘s Utopia works. Digital art has this hypnotic capacity to draw us in, inviting us to plunge into a whole new artistic universe.

As for NFTs, initially designed to bypass the big market players and give power back to artists, it is becoming imperative to regulate this new market to inspire confidence in artists and investors and make it a safe zone that will protect everyone.

In any case, digital art promises to transform the way we consume art. Digital natives will no doubt be increasingly inclined to explore different art forms, directly from their screens!

In the Happy Funky Family, we celebrate all forms of creation, whether physical or digital.

At present, we work with artists who create handmade pieces. But who knows what the future will bring? Perhaps we’ll soon be commissioning digital art? Perhaps we’ll provide digital artists with photos that will serve as the basis for the creation of a unique work. Just like our handmade works today, these creations will tell your story in an exceptional way. 🌈✨

Share your opinion on this artistic revolution. And above all, don’t miss ARTE’s fascinating report to dive right into the heart of this digital artistic adventure! 🚀🖼️

Link to the report: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-024624/nft-chaos-dans-le-monde-de-l-art/

 

In our digital age, where photos are quickly taken and forgotten, it’s time to rediscover the classic art of portraiture. Imagine capturing the essence of your family in a custom painting, a personalized portrait that will pass on love, bonds and memories for generations to come. In this article, we’ll explore different forms of artistic expression, such as painting and drawing, to immortalize your family portrait.

1. A portrait painting: a unique work of art: Nothing can match the beauty and authenticity of a hand-painted portrait. Call on a talented artist to capture every detail and nuance of your loved ones. Delicate, precise brushstrokes will bring your faces to life, creating a truly unique work of art that reflects your family’s personality and emotions.
   
2. The power of portrait drawing: Drawing is a timeless form of artistic expression. A hand-drawn portrait offers elegant simplicity, emphasizing the distinctive features and expressions of each member of your family. The artist can use pencils or charcoal techniques to create a striking, realistic portrait that captures the essence of your loved ones in a subtle, artistic way.
   
3. Personalized family portrait: a unique touch: A personalized family portrait adds a touch of originality to your work of art. You can choose the style, colors and elements that best represent your family. From artistic backgrounds to symbolic accessories, every detail can be carefully incorporated to reflect your values, passions and family history.
   
4. A family heirloom to pass on: A family portrait is much more than a simple wall decoration. It’s a precious heirloom to be passed on to future generations. It tells the story of your family, evoking memories and deep emotions with every glance. Every time you look at the portrait, you’ll be transported back to those precious moments, sharing the richness of your memories with your children and grandchildren.

Conclusion: Whether you opt for a painting, illustration or drawing, a personalized family portrait is a timeless way to capture the essence of your loved ones. It’s a unique work of art that tells your story and will be passed down from generation to generation. Bring your memories to life by investing in an original family portrait, an artistic treasure that will shine in your home and amaze future generations.

 

With the arrival of the warm weather, the desire to organise weekend getaways is slowly but surely growing. Whether it’s for lovers, friends or family, weekend getaways are always an opportunity to discover new places and new exhibitions.

We have prepared our happy funky recommendations and have teamed up with Weekendesk to make you win a 150 euros voucher on their website… (contest to be found on our two instagram accounts: @happy_funky_family and @weekendesk_france)

This is of course the perfect opportunity to discover portraits made by renowned artists and to be inspired to transform your family, friends or pets photos into unique works of art thanks to the talented artists of the Happy Funky Family!

Whether in Paris, Marseille or Rodez, we have made a list of our favourite exhibitions which are all reasons to call on our partner Weekendesk!

 

1. Our Parisian favourites ❤️:

• Exhibition Pionnières, the Musée du Luxembourg takes us to the Paris of the Roaring Twenties from 2 March to 10 July 2022

The Musée du Luxembourg puts the spotlight on the artists of the Roaring Twenties with its new exhibition. Paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, textiles and literary works: no artistic field was neglected by these multi-talented women, who did not hesitate to break away from the norms of the time to innovate.

 

 

• Romy Schneider, the tribute exhibition to be discovered at the Cinémathèque from 16 March to 31 July

She was Sissi, Leni, Annemarie, Rosalie, Hélène, La Califfa… She was the actress revered by all throughout her career: the Cinémathèque pays tribute to Romy Schneider in an eponymous exhibition.

Portrait of our CED artist made from a confetti photo

 

• • The Color Festival, the immersive street art exhibition in a disused building from 2 April to 8 May 2022

  In this new place of more than 700 m², you can discover the works of more than 90 artists from all over the world. Street artists, illustrators, photographers, sculptors, digital artists… Urban art comes in all styles and colours!

  This year, new colours are being given pride of place: visitors will be plunged into a world of red, pink, yellow and green.

If you also want to bring street art into your living room, don’t hesitate to call on our talented street artist Alexis:

 

 

• • Maya Ruiz Picasso, at the Picasso Museum from 19 April to 1 January 2023

An unprecedented dive into the intimacy of Pablo Picasso… This is what the Picasso Museum is proposing with an exhibition based on the portraits of his daughter Maya, entitled Maya Ruiz-Picasso, daughter of Pablo. The exhibition retraces part of the artist’s life and proposes to reread part of his work through the prism of the relationship he had with his daughter, born in 1935 from his passionate relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter.

2. Our favourites ❤️ in the regions

• The Mona Lisa at the Marseille Stock Exchange, immersive exhibition from 10 March to 21 August 2022

This year, the Mona Lisa is virtually transported to the Palais de la Bourse in Marseilles in a new sensory exhibition presented by the Grand Palais Immersif in collaboration with the Louvre. Within an interactive digital device, the public will travel through six thematic areas revealing the historical events that marked the destiny of the Mona Lisa and the genius of its creator, Leonardo da Vinci. An immersive dive to try to unravel the mystery of the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa, as close as possible to the painting.

 

• In Aix en Provence, at the Hôtel de Caumont, Raoul Dufy from 5 May to 18 September 2022

In the majestic architectural setting of the Hôtel de Caumont, a tribute will be paid to the abundant work of the painter Raoul Dufy, within a retrospective combining watercolours, paintings, drawings and ceramics. From impressionism to cubism and fauvism, the fine line and genre scenes of this master of colour seduce by their simplicity. The event explores the artist’s many facets and creative periods, with particular emphasis on Dufy’s close links with the work of Cézanne from 1908 to 1914.

Self-portrait by Raoul Dufy, 1935

 

• In Rodez at the Soulages Museum, L’ingénieur des formes Fernand Léger will be exhibited from 11 June to 6 November 2022

Engineer of forms, architect of colour, he is undoubtedly the painter of life. He transcribed the latter in all its splendour, magnifying work and glorifying leisure. Cities and countryside share the limelight in his canvases, alongside machines and people, who gradually build up a new world, and whose movements are presented through a new language, specific to the artist. From one canvas to another, Fernand Léger presents life, its different forms and its means of reinventing itself. An art that proclaims the simplicity, and above all the beauty of everything, by using the frontality of the characters and the direct confrontation of the objects, to impose on us a true hymn to life.

Family portrait by Fernand Léger

 

• In Bordeaux, the Musée des Beaux Arts honours Rosa Bonheur from 18 May to 18 September 2022

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the artist’s birth in Bordeaux, her home town is organising a major retrospective to pay tribute to her. A good way to rehabilitate Rosa Bonheur, an often forgotten animal painter. The exhibition, in partnership with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, will present both known and unpublished works, perfectly illustrating the fresh, and sometimes scientific, view that this woman had of animals. But the event will also present a new facet of the artist, exploring, for example, her passion for opera and the relationships she had with certain composers of her time.

Portrait of Rosa Bonheur by Achile Fould

 

• In Bordeaux, at the Musée des Confluences, the exhibition “Sur la piste des Sioux” will be on display from 22 October 2021 to 28 August 2022

Within the walls of this futuristic museum, many treasures await you, including pieces never before exhibited, between traditional clothing, historical archives, advertising and film imagery, to rediscover the “American Indians” in a whole new light.

Portrait on plexi from a photo by our artist Polette

 

Have a great weekend, take pictures of your escapades to immortalize your most beautiful moments and select the best ones for our talented artists to transform them into works of art!

 

The Happy Funky Sisters

Nathalie & Caroline

 

 

 

 

Does art make us happy?

 

In the Happy Funky Family, we are convinced that art makes you happy and that our commissioned portraits provide an unbeatable emotion.

Is this a figment of the imagination or are we right? Can art really help us to reach that state of serenity and lasting fulfilment that we call HAPPINESS? 

We were “happy” to look into the matter!

 

By Nathalie Boscq, Co-founder of the Happy Funky Family

            Mother-daughter silk-screened photo portrait by our artist Dale

 

1. The childhood of art…

 

At first sight, art would make us happy, because we can enjoy it. It makes us happy on all levels: socially, psychologically, existentially and deeply. Yes, art makes us happy, it is even its duty, at least what we look for and need it for.

Who would go and quench their thirst for art while hurting themselves?
On the contrary, art allows us to meet people who are just as passionate as we are and sometimes just as strange and incomprehensible, but who make us happy. These informal encounters with artists, these people who step out of the lines drawn to denounce injustice or simply to put life back into the hearts of those who have nothing left. Yes, because when we no longer have anything to tie us to life, only art has the capacity to raise us to the highest level of ourselves to transcend us and make us taste a moment of eternity.

 

It is in order to remain psychically stronger that art comes to lift us up, because we choose the art we want to love. The human being has this capacity of choice, he wants his happiness, he chooses the way without forgetting to be surprised. Our existence is thus irradiated with the rays of art and in us, this long-awaited and sought-after happiness finds its fulfilment. It is what we do with art that makes us happy.

Portrait by our painter Juliette

 

2. Art as a vehicle for emotions

 

Feel good” novels, “good mood” films, music that “boosts” or “gives you a boost”, many works of art undoubtedly give us pleasure. Remember the feeling of being on cloud nine after seeing “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain”… It is difficult to say that art makes us happy, since happiness depends on a large number of variables, but even if it does not make us happy for sure, it contributes to it! “Experiencing this kind of satisfaction can contribute to happiness. We can certainly link this pleasure to certain conceptions of happiness or human accomplishment in our tradition of thought,” explains Danielle Lories, professor of psychology at the University of Geneva. Danielle Lories, professor of philosophy and philosophical aesthetics at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), explains.

When we look at a painting, a sculpture or listen to music, we secrete dopamine, the pleasure hormone and desire. Art frees our brains from reality and gives us the opportunity for more happiness.

You shiver when you listen to the opera, you smile in spite of yourself at the theatre, your body feels and reacts, sensitive to positive emotions. The mind, too, is enriched by the ideas and stories. “There has never really been a separation in our tradition of thinking about the pleasure of both body and mind,” says Danielle Lories.

Art has an impact on the body, undeniably. And while we are still in the early stages of scientific understanding of the effects of art, studies to date show that looking at a work of art, or creating one, helps us connect more easily to our emotions, and suggests the possibility of connecting better with others.

 

                               

Portrait of friends by our artist Pamela

 

3. Art helps us to live together

While art can give pleasure and help us to live better by managing our emotions, it can also teach us about human nature and relationships. The moments shared at the cinema, during a concert or a play bring well-being and positive feelings. The communion of spectators can also, in a certain emotional and intellectual state of mind, have beneficial effects on relationships between people in society,” adds Danielle Lories. We might find something there that brings us closer to human happiness, in the sense of the fulfilment that would be living with others.”

Moreover, Art is meant to be be lived togetherto be shared in the community. The public of an exhibition or an artistic event likes to confront its points of view and interpretations of the same work, likes to seek together to interpret and understand what an artist wanted to express. The most important thing is not so much to like what you have seen, but to have felt an authentic emotion in front of the work. The word “aesthetic” comes from the Greek aïsthésis, which means “sensation”.

Art is also a revelation of our humanity. It allows us to better understand ourselves and others. Art has no country of origin, art has no religion, art is universal. It brings together and unites men and women from all over the world…. Indeed, no need to know a foreign language to decipher, interpret and appropriate a work of art. It speaks for itself.

 

4. Art, revealing the beauty of the world 

 

“Art does not reproduce the visible, it makes it visible. Paul Klee.

Artists are revelators, they help us to see the world differently, they take us away from the utilitarian view of the world. The interest of art is the possibility to get out of one’s own mind… Art sharpens our perception, allows us to have a more contemplative and less utilitarian relationship with the world! We can therefore say that it contributes to our happiness.

Oscar Wilde said “you can only see a thing when you see its beauty…”. Art reveals the beauty of things and it is not art that imitates life, it is life that imitates art!!!

Family portrait by our artist Carole

 

5. Art, the new happy pill?

 

Matisse, Monet or Kandinsky, twice a week. And all with a prescription! Since this winter, in Montreal, going to the museum can be prescribed by your doctor. The idea behind the museum prescription program, which is the result of an agreement between the organization Médecins francophones du Canada and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), is to allow patients and their caregivers to enjoy the health benefits of art free of charge. “A century ago, people were not convinced that sport was good for their health. We are in the same situation today with works of art,” says Nathalie Bondil, Director and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). The museum’s motto sums up the approach: “Art does good. But it can also heal. No doubt about it! For the past thirty years in France, many health structures have shared this observation with art therapy, which is still little known. By using all forms of art (for example drawing for the youngest, photography and video for the elderly), art therapy improves the patient’s mood, allows him or her to reduce the dose of medication, and reduces convalescence. But what actually happens in our brain? How does art affect our health?

Jean-Pierre Changeux, neurobiologist and professor at the Collège de France, was the first to decipher the neural mechanisms involved in the appreciation of beauty (Du vrai, du beau, du bienOdile Jacob). The contemplation of a work of art functions as a reward. “Beauty is essential to the human being because it makes us feel good,” the specialist reminds us.

Some scientific studies tend to show that art is an indispensable support for the proper development of our brain. According to Pierre Lemarquis, the benefits of art have been known for thousands of years because it acts like a medicine.

Art contributes, by practising it, to the triggering of the famous hormone dopamine, which is the hormone of reward, as explained by Jean-Pierre Changeux, neurobiologist and professor at the Collège de France.

                                            

Portrait of a woman by our painter Jean-Louis

 

6. Art awakens our empathy

 

According to Plato, “the first good is health, the second is beauty” (Laws II, 22). Neuroscience studies in recent years have confirmed the intuitions of the ancient philosophers: looking at a work of art, playing music, has direct effects on our brain. For Pierre Lemarquis, a neurologist, it is as if ” art caresses our brain “. His book, Portrait du cerveau en artiste, explains that contemplating a work of art stimulates the frontal cortex, the seat of reason (when we try to understand a contemporary art installation, for example). If we like it, our brain increases the brightness, contrast and colours to enjoy it fully. Very quickly, we awaken our mirror neurons, i.e. our empathy neurons. Even more surprisingly, the bilateral fusiform gyrus is also activated. This is the area involved in face recognition: we see a beautiful painting as we see a loved one! All this has an impact on our health.

A recent study by researchers at University College London, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, concluded that cultural visits reduce the risk of suffering from depression during one’s lifetime: 32% less risk of falling into depression when one becomes elderly, if one goes to the cinema, the theatre or the museum several times a year. The figure rises to 48% less risk for those who go once a month or more. A good way to combine business with pleasure…

 

In short, we should not deprive ourselves of art, we should not deprive ourselves of art, because it is precious. Art moves us, relaxes us and makes us more caring, generous and open to others.

We like to borrow these words from Picasso: “Erase the grey of life and light up the colours you have inside”.. This is exactly the vocation that the Happy Funky Family gives to art!

 

To find out more about the Happy Funky Family and discover Nathalie and Caroline, the two Happy Funky Sisters behind this online art gallery, click on the icons :

Youtube: https://youtu.be/OqxR5PJt1mw

The site: https://www.happyfunkyfamily.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/69569285/admin/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joinhappyfunkyfamily

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/happy_funky_family/

 

Our main sources:

 

https://www.beauxarts.com/grand-format/lart-est-il-bon-pour-la-sante/

https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2020/10/22/quand-la-science-prouve-que-l-art-fait-du-bien_6056952_3246.html

https://www.lalibre.be/lifestyle/magazine/2016/07/15/lart-nous-rend-il-heureux-D7M26ZV3CRA47BQ5BTRFVPBPNQ/

Article relayed on our partner’s website Optimism!