ARTIST STATEMENT
Money is designed to measure value. I use it to question it.
My work begins where currency ends. By shredding banknotes and rebuilding them fragment by fragment into textured paintings and sculptural forms, I transform one of society’s strongest symbols of power into something that can no longer be spent, only experienced.
I am interested in the moment when value shifts from the economic to the human, from ownership to perception. In that transformation, destruction becomes creation, and discarded fragments become carriers of memory, vulnerability, and possibility.
I explore the invisible systems that shape how we assign value, revealing that what appears broken, insignificant, or spent may still possess extraordinary meaning.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Doina Iacob is a Romanian-born, Illinois-based contemporary artist whose work transforms shredded banknotes into richly textured paintings and sculptural reliefs. Through meticulous hand assembly of thousands of currency fragments, she investigates how value is created, preserved, and reimagined. Her practice explores the intersection of economics, memory, nature, and human perception, questioning the invisible systems that shape our understanding of worth. By converting a universal symbol of exchange into an expressive artistic medium, Iacob challenges conventional ideas of wealth while revealing beauty within what has been intentionally destroyed.
© Doina Iacob