MeWeFree | Currency Collages x Joey Colombo (Made With Real Money)

May 5

May 5 Currency Collages x Joey Colombo (Made With Real Money)

Personally, I don’t carry cash much. I don’t need to, really. I prefer the convenience of swiping my purchases to the game. I’m not mad at cash, though. To be honest, my money doesn’t really feel real since I can’t see it. I’d actually feel more secure if I had all my money in cash. Cash is tangible power and it can get you things that electronic funds can’t in some instances. The more cash you have, the more power you have to get what you want/need. Nobody’s turning down any cash if you have enough, but your invisible money might be stifled should you not have your ID available or your account is frozen for whatever reason.

Though I rarely have dead presidents on me, I follow an artist on Instagram whose work revolves around paper notes. His name is Joey Colombo and he truly makes money work for him by creating currency collages using money from “vastly different locations, cultures, ideologies, and time periods.” Yes, Colombo sources real, authentic paper money from around the world for his pieces. He takes a destroy and rebuild approach to the money (which he says is all about control), first cutting up the money into different shapes, then piecing the colorful shapes together to make a new, vibrant work of art with a new value of its own. Though Colombo is making a grander statement about money and control with his art, the use of so many difference types of cash adds a level of opulence to his pieces that few singular things actually attain.

Joey Colombo says this as his official artist statement:

Money is all about control; who has it, who wants it, how to get it and keep it. The power of my art lies in the act of cutting up the very device of control and in that process transferring that power and making it my own. By taking an object we hold treasurable and transforming it into an object of art, I am both reducing its inherent and practical purposes, and empowering a secondary significance and value. Each bill, like each living person alive or dead, is wholly unique. The bills come from vastly different locations, cultures, ideologies, and time periods - each possessing unique energies and stories. As I cut them up I release and reimagine them through my own vision into objects that have never existed. Each bill and the pieces they assemble into take on a new and transferable value. They become a new currency, and one whose story has just begun to unfold.

Colombo’s work is truly unique and the craftsmanship is dazzling to the eye. The detail that goes into each piece made of actual currency is probably why his pieces are going for thousands of dollars on his site. If you just like the work but don’t have racks to spend, Colombo is currently offering facemasks featuring prints of some of his popular pieces for $30 a piece to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Check out some of his art below. His official website is jcolombo.com and he can be followed on Instagram at @jdotcolombo.