James Penfold, an artist named Penny, returned home from a short vacation to find that his laptop and hard drive containing hundreds of his works had been stolen from his East London home.

In his Instagram post, the artist mentions that he did not have a backup of his work in the cloud and lost so much that he hardly dares to imagine. “I feel completely empty,” he says.

Penfold, who paints with stencils, often composes on a computer to create his intricate collages. When his computer was stolen, many of his work in progress were lost, including sketches and finished work he planned to show at upcoming self-funded exhibitions in London.

Also on his computer was an unreleased NFT project and a portrait of Batman, according to Artnet News.

“I would be willing to offer one million pounds ($1.2 million) for the safe return of my files and laptop,” James Penfold said in a statement. “Probably the hard drive is in the trash or at the pawnshop, as it’s worth nothing to anyone else, but it’s priceless to me and my family. It’s literally like a part of me was stolen from me,” he said.

In an address to his followers, the artist encouraged himself by pointing out the irony of theft, given that his work often depicts people committing theft.

With information from APE-MPE