One of the cooler ways to create art is to grab a bunch of currency bills and draw patterns on them.
Toronto-based Bryan Espiritu has gone ahead and drawn portraits of pop culture icons on Canadian cash. He has distorted the image of Queen Elizabeth in order to create a skeleton and in another, seeing her face upside down makes you see Jabba the Hutt.
Likewise, he has drawn portraits of Drake, U.S. Drake, Peter Griffin, Ricky Gervais, Luigi and Alfalfa.
The funniest has to be the portrait of Ricky Gervais, and one can easily recognize his smirk on the face of the dollar bills.
It is not clear how many Canadian dollars he ‘spent’ while drawing these amazing portraits, but I am sure if he sold them at an exhibition he would get a lot more money in return. It is perhaps a take on how art doesn’t need validation of money or of the well-heeled for its sustenance and existence.
Artists have existed in times of calamities, financial turmoil and even wars. Perhaps, Bryan Espiritu also wanted to convey that popular celebrities provide joy that is priceless. This isn’t the first time dollar bills have been used in art. You could also take a look at Dollar Bills Wallpaper, which used $100,000 in the process.
