If you look at the close-up picture of the dumpling, you can make out a pair of eyes, a nose and mouth that look like an elderly face, thanks to the deep folds of the wrapper. Then there is a croissant that, viewed from a certain angle, has pointy ears and menacing eyes staring at you. These are David Leung’s “beasts”, photographs of food he has taken over the years manipulated to look like creatures that may appear grotesque or cute, depending on the viewer. He is selling them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and donating part of the proceeds to an environmental charity. The idea came to him in January 2022 when he was on a trip to Melbourne, Australia, to take his 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter there to study. Leung, 50, is head of branding at Maxim’s, the Hong Kong restaurant group, and has an advertising background. He recalls that one day he and his family were in a park looking up at the sky and observing the clouds. “People can look at the same cloud but it looks like something different to each of them,” he says. It inspired him to go to his laptop and look through his vast collection of food pictures he has taken over the years with his Leica camera – he enjoys food and photography. From there he chose 111 photos to manipulate into mirror images so that they look like “beasts”, as he likes to call them. Chinese art collector goes her own way, starting education foundation The pictures of the food look familiar – you can recognise a crab claw, a piece of barbecued pork or tomato – but in the final photos these inanimate objects seem to have their own personalities. Each of these “beasts” has a name, such as “Mutant Mussel” and “Blood Thirsty Amadai”, and they form an army called “Beasts From Feasts”, the name of the NFT collection. An NFT is a digital certificate of authenticity that uses the same blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. It proves ownership of an asset that it is linked to, in this case Leung’s photographs. All 111 images are on display at Art Now Gallery in Singapore. They can also be viewed on Instagram @beastsforfeasts and in a virtual gallery he has created in the metaverse that will be launched soon. There is one NFT attached to each of the images, and the price of each is set at 0.1 Ethereum (equivalent to US$267 at the latest rate). Part of the proceeds will be donated to EcoMatcher, an environmental platform, which will use the money to plant trees in Thailand. Planting trees will not only help offset the large amount of power consumed by the creation of Ethereum-based NFTs. For Leung, there is also a circular relationship between trees and food production. “If we have more trees we will have a better food supply, better ingredients for chefs to cook with,” he says. Owners of the NFTs will become members of the “BFF Club” and can get special access to restaurants where reservations are notoriously difficult to obtain, and to exclusive dining experiences. Even though his NFT project is barely three months old, Leung has already started organising the second collection, on which he will collaborate with Hong Kong chefs and food brands to create new images of their signature dishes. You only live once: Hong Kong art gallery owner’s colourful career He is in talks with chef May Chow of Little Bao and Happy Paradise, model and pastry chef Amanda Strang, Caleb Ng of pizzeria Interval, Sam Lui, who is behind Wendy’s Wok World, and Anthony Ng Tak-lun who owns Nikushou, a Japanese grilled meat restaurant. Leung also plans to collaborate with Loveramics to choose eight beast images to print on a limited edition set of plates that will be sold for a corporate social responsibility project. The possibilities of creating new “beasts” seem endless – he is also keen on doing a series on vegetarian and vegan food, and Singaporean cuisine. “It’s a one-man-band personal project and every day I’m learning new things about NFTs,” says Leung, who adds his employer is well aware of his plans. “I’m not working with direct competitors. In the long run I can help them [Maxim’s] with their marketing if they want to go in this direction.” So far he has sold 30 NFTs to raise around HK$70,000 (US$9,000). Not bad for a small project that was just meant to show his son that one can bring one’s passions together to create something satisfying artistically and potentially financially viable.