Iconic Banksy painting the first addition to Particle’s fine art collection

NFT marketplace Particle has revealed the first piece of fine art to be featured and ‘particalised’ on the platform – Banksy’s iconic “Love is in the Air”.

The infamous 2005 artwork from Banksy, which was purchased for $12.9 million by Particle at a Sotheby’s auction in May, will be split into 10,000 ‘Particles’ which can then be purchased by a buyer in the form of an NFT.

The unique ‘particalisation’ process divides a painting into a 100×100 grid, resulting in 10,000 unique ‘particles’ that can then buy and sell their NFTs on Avalanche-powered secondary markets.

Interested buyers can apply from December 13, 2021, and can sign up for the waitlist before the Primary Sale of “Love is in the Air”, which begins the week of January 10–14, 2022.

Following the auction, the physical painting of “Love is in the Air” will be donated to the Particle Foundation, with 1% of Particles being donated to the Foundation to act as a “protective shard” – ensuring that no one party or entity can claim total possession of the physical painting.

“Love is in the Air” will also be exhibited at ‘First Fridays’ at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami during Art Basel week in Miami on Friday December 3 2021.

“Through this unique process, Particle is achieving digitisation without destruction of the underlying work.

“We believe that NFTs are enabling a new form of ownership that could not exist previously. Particles allow anyone to be an owner of a great work, no matter who or where they are.”

Two pieces of Banksy artwork were also the first to be sold at auction at Sotheby’s using Ethereum earlier this month.