Mixed-media work, 2021
Based on a dream or hazy recollection I had as a child, after being taken to see "The Jungle Book" that the character woke in the morning after receiving a gift of money and putting it under their pillow; to find it was only dried leaves. It's a trope, of course, from many 'Fairy Tales' where the protagonist receives gifts in the supernatural world but finds they can't take them back.
I was also always fascinated by the 'magic' by which some pieces of paper become money.
But then that's strangely related to what an artist does!
I ended up with a collection of counterfeit notes after a commission from a Building Society (a Savings Bank) which itself went bust before I completed it.
They stayed with me for years until this idea crystallized.
I decided to freeze the moment when the banknotes turn to leaves and the leaves to banknotes. Made from real counterfeit banknotes, dried leaves and pigment ink on archival paper. Some are only counterfeit notes and ink, some are only leaves and ink and some have neither real leaves nor real counterfeit notes.