The Art of Evan Wondolowski

Expired Federal Reserve Notes
5” x 7” • 2010

“The global financial system has ceased to function for productive investment in life-goods; collective-interest agencies of governments and unions are stripped while for-profit state subsidies multiply; police state laws and methods advance while belligerent wars for corporate resources increase; the media are corporate ad vehicles and the academy is increasingly reduced to corporate functions; public sectors and services are non-stop defunded and privatized as tax evasion and transnational corporate funding and service by governments rise at the same time at every level.”

–John McMurtry

U.S. Pennies
42” x 42” • 2018

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.”

–John Maynard Keynes

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
24” x 36” • 2018

“If I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

–Donald J. Trump

U.S. Pennies, Steel Wartime Pennies
48” x 72” • 2012

“If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.”

–Barack Obama

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
16” x 26” • 2011

“We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence.”

–John F. Kennedy

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
21” x 34” • 2012

“What's happening is, there's transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. So the people who get to use the money first which is created by the Federal Reserve system benefit. So the money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. That's why you have more billionaires than ever before.”

–Ron Paul

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
21” x 34” • 2012

“Damn right I like the life I live, because I went from negative to positive.”

–Biggie Smalls

Shredded North Korean Won, Newspaper, Charcoal
16”x 26” • 2014

“I like Donald Trump, he's a good friend, and I've always asked him to talk to me because the good people of North Korea and the government asked me to talk to Donald Trump about what they want and how we can solve things.”

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
16” x 26” • 2013

“Get rich or die tryin.”

Expired Federal Reserve Notes, Newspaper, Charcoal
21” x 34” • 2012

“If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself.”

–Steven Colbert

Expired Federal Reserve Notes
30” x 40” • 2009

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

–Ben Franklin