Australian art student Nicholas Manion [Queensland College of Art, Brisbane] has hit upon a clever idea: delicately cut paper currency forming the skyline of major cities. His one-of-a-kind notes bring a contemporary visual connection to their country of origin, in addition to images of statesmen, local languages and artistic styles.
Money makes the world go round and circles the globe forming links between cities on opposite sides of the world. Nicholas further explains his art:
My work aims to explore ideas connected with cities, urban life and the built environment. Reflecting my own background, my art cannot be solely understood as either illustration or sculpture; rather in challenging the relationships between two-and three-dimensional forms, these works in paper seek to create an “in-between” state of pure form free from preconceptions and noise. I seek to transform common materials such as paper and cardboard into delicate objects of intricate detail and unexpected beauty.
Money and paper art together. I wish I knew about his work for this years’ Money Week. Nicholas asked if I had any information about the legality of selling these works as art, whether there are laws pertaining to the defacement of paper money? Anyone know about this?
Look what Photoshop had to say when I attempted to open one of his jpg images:
This only happened with one of the images, the rest opened fine. I had to convert this JPG into a PDF file, then open it with Photoshop, which had no problem with the image as a PDF. The weird “Big Brother” thing was the actual image [see below]. Why did this image get flagged when the rest didn’t? And why did all the images in Money Week make it past the Photoshop censors without a peep, when some of those images are actual scanned notes? Weird…
Visit www.nickolya.net
[…] Bone. Still searching for more information on who did the piece. If you have the time, check out this other post (also by Rag & Bone) featuring another artist’s money sculpting […]
Pingback by Sparkle Thots » Blog Archive » money talks — March 25, 2008 @ 11:01 am
I LOVE THESE!!! Thsi is so clever. Is there a way for me to purchase these skylines?
I would love to have one for each currency.
Comment by NAS — August 20, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Very beautiful but you destroyed a lot of money….
Comment by Alekzander — July 27, 2010 @ 4:06 pm
Alekzander, I’m just the blogger, I write about interesting topics, such as currency, however this isn’t my work, read the post for details about the artist. My opinion is that nothing is sacred regarding art and artistic endeavors, especially currency, there is so much of it. Our preconceived notions on the value of ‘money’ imbues layers of meaning to art created with the paper which makes up our various currencies. Thanks for writing.
Comment by Jason Thompson — July 27, 2010 @ 5:41 pm