Invictus Capital's NFT Lab Launches the First NFT Collection of African Art

A pioneer in the digital asset space, Invictus Capital has unveiled its first NFT (non-fungible token) collection through the Invictus NFT Lab which combines African fine art with blockchain technology.

“The global pandemic has been especially challenging for creatives worldwide, with fine artists particularly hard hit by gallery closures, curtailed travel and canceled exhibitions,” says Brett Bellairs from 131 A Gallery. In the face of these challenges, many digital artists have embraced the opportunity to engage with the fast-growing community of NFT collectors. But artists who make physical works have been left behind. At the same time, traditional art collectors have struggled to see the value proposition of ownership rights to a publicly-accessible digital file.

The Out of Africa Collection by the Invictus NFT Lab bridges this gap in that it's an NFT collection that includes curated artworks in physical form from a range of professional fine artists at the top of their game. Collectors will bid on NFT representations of the original, physical artworks. These NFTs act like a certificate of ownership that allows the holder to have the physical artwork delivered to them, if they wish. The NFT representations will often incorporate animation, or other augmented reality features made possible by digitization.

The collection is made up of 100 curated, unique NFTs by top Southern African artists backed by (and redeemable for) physical artworks across a range of mediums. The project is a first foray into the NFT space for most of the participating artists and will introduce their work to a global crypto market. “This inaugural collection is a first of its kind for Southern African artists, and global investors,” says Daniel Schwartzkopff, CEO at Invictus Capital.

The strength of Southern Africa's diversity in culture and artistic style shines throughout the collection; from Robert Slingsby’s use of ancient geometry to celebrate African heritage to Blessing Ngobeni’s brave sociopolitical commentary to Olivié Keck’s pop culture-inspired whimsy. "This collection is a triumph for these artists and represents some of the finest new, upcoming and established talent,” says Marelize van Zyl, Curator for the Out of Africa NFT collection.

For collectors, NFTs make it possible to cut out significant middleman costs that can make investing in art otherwise unpalatable. “For artists, NFTs give them access to a truly global audience and a royalty-driven revenue model made possible by blockchain,” says Charl Bezuidenhout of WorldART.

The project kicks off in January, with the distribution of NFT posters to interested parties, and will culminate in an auction in February for NFT representations of the original artworks. The auctions will be facilitated by the OpenSea NFT market, the world’s largest and most trusted NFT resale platform.

The Invictus NFT Lab is an example of Invictus Capital's imperative to disrupt traditional investment and financial services. "We believe that an NFT Lab, like this one, will go a long way to bringing NFTs into mainstream investment portfolios, and appeal to traditional art collectors; modern NFT collectors and anyone in between”, says Schwartzkopff.

Prospective investors interested in the project can subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on participating artists and artworks, as well as concrete dates for each project phase. The technical details can be found in the Litepaper, and the project’s progress can be tracked via Twitter or Instagram.