$2 Bill Show Update

The $2 Bill Show organized and curated by Mat Gleason is up until August 23rd.

Here is an excerpt of what Mat said on his blog:
"The show started out as a necessity to fill the gallery over the summer. Artist Michael Hornyak had participated in our Autumn Juried show and the prize for that exhibit was winning a solo show at the i-5 gallery...

So I was hit with this inspiration for the $2 Bill show when I found this stack of $2 bills I had gotten at my bank a year or so ago. I posted the parameters for the show in my blog and a lot of people responded..."
---
There are some ultra amazing works, and you will just have to take my word on it, because I forgot to put the charged battery in my camera before I left for the show that night.
My favorite part of the project, was the fact that so many people cut up the $2 (including me):

Since I am a painter, my usual method involves applying layers and mixing, as opposed to taking elements away from something. But I love collage too, and felt a little bit like going back to my DaDa roots...

And since I recently closed the gallery, I feel like this is a time of purging, looking back on memories and taking some new directions. I've been wanting to simplify and have been working on some uncomplicated diptychs, so I decided to turn it into a diptych.

I really wasn't thinking too much about that fluffy romantic stuff while working on the $2, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense.

Mary Jean Mallman was in the show and she did a bunch of research on the $2 bill prior to creating her piece. She told me at the opening that Jefferson wanted money to be federally operated, not for private banks to trade...He lost, hence the term on the front,"This legal tender is for all debts, public and private." These are the actual printed words from the bill that I cut out to use for the diptych.


Some other "cutters" in the show whose work made me swoon and wiggle were YaYaChou, Leigh Salgado (whose pieces both sold btw), David Trulli (we bought that one), Carol Es - also known as "art cutter" did some hilarious painting, and the artist who did the faucet...I loved that one, really gorgeously executed $2 snips encased in a resin "waterdrop".

Other patterns in execution included eyeball imagery, resin with abstract shapes, lots of paint and added found objects, self-portraits, altering the teeny tiny faces on the back of the bill and animal heads replacing Jefferson's.

There are about 70 pieces in all, so just go see for yourself. The gallery is open on Friday and Saturday.