None of This is Real Piece 2 - Original Collage on Canvas 
Mixed media on 8" x 10" premuim 1" thick canvas. 
 
This is an original series of three pieces that serve as a reminder that we live in a world built on illusions, fabricated rules, expectations, and systems designed to benefit a few while keeping others locked out.
 
In Piece 2, once again we are met with a backdrop of vintage Monopoly money stamped with the words "None of this is real," representing how wealth isn’t distributed fairly and the game was never meant to be won by all.
 
A vintage Get Out of Jail Free card reflects how the wealthiest will never be punished for their crimes. Power isn’t held by those who play fair, it’s held by those who have the $$.
 
Hand-cut, sensual lips, seductively poised, stand as a reflection of how the feminine is treated like a commodity, shaped by the patriarchy, tied to power, profit, and control.
 
A hand-cut Rolex and vintage skeletal game pieces establish time as both currency and control. We’re told time is money, that our worth is measured in productivity, and yet the ultimate truth, death, is something science struggles to explain. Materialism insists that consciousness ends when the body does, that only what can be measured is real. But what if what we call reality is just the limit of what our tools can perceive? 
 
Monopoly houses appear again, this time painted, marking the rapid rise in real estate costs, without actual value increase or considerations for living wages. 
 
A painted domino reminds us that none of this exists in isolation. Capitalism, material science, patriarchy are part of the same machine. One illusion feeds the next.
 
And yet, a hand-cut yellow rose is placed in the corner. Unlike the rest of this, nature is real. Something that exists in the background for many of us, largely unseen. Nonetheless, a force that doesn’t require validation, proof, or permission to exist.
 
None of this is natural. None of this is real. But in knowing there is power.