«SCAM»

In 1920 Charles Ponzi promised investors a 50 percent return in 45 days. Money poured in because people wanted the promise to be true, and when the scheme collapsed that same year, his name became a label for this kind of fraud.

That story is the starting point of this money wall art painting, the title work of my second collection «SCAM».

The portrait is Benjamin Franklin, taken from the US $100 bill, where he has appeared since 1914. I smeared his face like old clown makeup: dark smudges around the eyes and a red grin. Strips of the face slide sideways like a glitch, and teal paint drips from his hair onto his shoulders. He wears a black tracksuit with three white stripes and a knock-off logo with a misspelled name. In his hands is a banknote-counting machine feeding red 100-yuan notes.

Behind him the gold background is covered with hand-drawn price charts labelled BTC, Brent, CNY and ETH. Their lines climb and jump the way everyone hopes a line will. Blue, green and yellow blocks and pixel squares sit around the edges, a nod to Mondrian.

Money has been a pop art subject for a long time. Andy Warhol painted the dollar sign in 1981. I wanted to put a founding father in a tracksuit, because the face on the bill is supposed to mean trust, and the tracksuit is plainly fake. I like that clash, and I think it is the whole point of contemporary pop art about money.

This is an original pop art painting from 2022, 120x90 cm, oil and acrylic on canvas, number 1 of 8 in the collection.

Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email. There is also a hand-finished lithograph.