Jyo John Mulloor is a 38-year-old NFT artist with 28.3K followers on his Instagram. In his bio, he explains that he was Born in India [and] Reborn in UAE which he has now settled into and working on his passion.
Although many artists love to increase the saturation of the warm, desert colours in the UAE, Jyo does the complete opposite. Imagine the fountains of the Burj Khalifa freezing over in hard blocks of ice, and being able to ice-skate in front of it.
Using his imagination, Mulloor has designed many stunning images of the different parts of the UAE, covered in sheets of snow. Expats and travelers enjoy residing in the UAE or visiting for a short stay to enjoy the heat, yet those who have lived in the country for years, like to escape it during the holidays when the weather becomes slightly unbearable.
Mulloor also uses his art to story-tell, capturing the reader’s attention, especially in one of his posts this year that included a carousel of pictures. He asked the question, ‘What if my Dubai has snowy winters?’ Before explaining his story of living in Dubai for 16 years and seeing magnificent projects happen including the Burj Khalifa, Dubai Frame, Ain Dubai, and Expo 2020. He then says ‘we, the resident of Dubai experiences a cooler winter every year, literally and metaphorically. Here, I am imagining a series of visuals on how it would look like if we had a Snowy Dubai Winter.’
It is Jyo’s followers who are captivated by this artist’s work commenting ‘I would play in the snow,’ ‘Even 9 years ago, this was my thought how beautiful Dubai would be in the snow!’ and ‘As a UAE resident, I love the idea and the imagination.’
Now Jyo has plans to release a brand-new set of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as part of his tribute to the nation for UAE flag day in December. In an article by Arabian Business, they note that his ideas were drawn from his ‘inspiration from a dream’ visualising the ‘UAE in four ways – blanketed in snow, lucky greenery, a Martian city, and even as Pandora (a sci-fi city in James Cameron’s Avatar).
The Indian expat then explains to AB “It is all based on the UAE national flag. If you look closely, white represents snow in Dubai, red represents Dubai in Mars or ‘Emartia’ – which drew inspiration from the UAE Mars Mission – green depicts UAE in the spring, filled with green trees, inspired by the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan. The colour black drew inspiration from James Cameron’s Avatar.”
It is clear that Mulloor has respect and love for the UAE, finding creative inspiration through imagination and wonders that the UAE has to offer. We look forward to seeing more of the digital artist and what other fairytale-like images he is yet to show us on Instagram.
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