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Karmelo: 32 Skulls, 1 Refusal, Still Here on Bitcoin

After a long struggle with their health, Karmelo set aside characters for a single skull. Still Here Series 01 is 32 simulated silkscreen studies of it, each in its own palette, all inscribed on Bitcoin and all saying the same thing: not today.

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"Most of you know my work through the characters I create," Karmelo wrote on October 20. "This collection comes from somewhere more personal." The artist, who works across characters, collectibles and editions, traces Still Here to a long struggle to keep a grasp on their health, an experience that made mortality "feel less abstract." The new collection, inscribed on Bitcoin, was born from that experience "and the defiance that comes with it."

The subject never changes. Series 01 brings together 32 interpretations of the same tightly cropped skull, each shaped through composition, palette and a simulated silkscreen process. Karmelo calls them "digital silkscreen simulation artworks exploring mortality, persistence, and defiance through photographic screenprint studies," drawing on the visual language of screenprinting to test how repetition, color and ink can change the emotional weight of a single image. "Across 32 palettes, the same skull becomes a study of that condition: defiance, uncertainty, joy, exhaustion," Karmelo wrote. "No single version tells the whole story."

The works were inscribed 1 by 1 at 800x800 pixels as children of a single parent inscription, the first entering the mempool on October 20. By October 22 all 32 were on chain, and Karmelo opened the series with an online exhibition at meloverse.art and a walk through video. Each skull, in its own colors, offers "the same refusal: 'Not today.'" The release, Karmelo admits, is a step outside a usual PFP comfort zone, though it keeps "an attitude you'll find comfortably familiar."

"Still here" can be "a declaration, a surprise, or a quiet fact," Karmelo wrote. The skulls are only the beginning. "The skulls establish the first chapter. More will follow."

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