Patrick Mahon
Drawn Like Money Montage (Bifocal), two hand-punched prints of the artist's drawings, 2005/2006
Patrick Mahon, Drawn Like Money Montage (Bifocal), two hand-punched prints of the artist's drawings, 2005/2006
This paper piece is based on two drawings that I produced as part of the work of the Art & Cold Cash Collective in 2005. Our group undertook creative investigations that connected contemporary art to discourses surrounding money in a series of artistic activities and experiments that resulted in exhibitions in Northern and Southern Canada, and a book with the same title. In 2004, artists Jack Butler, Sheila Butler and I began working in collaboration with writer Ruby Arngna'naaq, and artist William Noah. The latter two Inuit members of the Collective lived through the change from a barter economy to capitalism in Baker Lake, Nunavut, in the mid-twentieth century.
Drawn Like Money (2005-06) is a drawing series I made based on the sensibilities of engraved banknotes, that was meant to bring critical attention to the way visual art and capitalism were intertwined in a colonial project that was initiated to link artmaking with economic development in Northern Canada in the 1960’s.
Here, the image on the right (with figure) is based on a photograph I made when I lived in Chesterfield Inlet, NU, (Igluligaajuk), in 1987. The landscape detail on the left refers to a photo I took in Baker Lake in 2005. For this montage I rephotographed two of my drawings from 2005, printed them, and later added a pattern of punched holes to the two paper prints. I then set them side-by-side like an open book or a pair of glasses: I was interested in pushing the artifactual quality of the piece, enhancing its sense of artifice to allude to the ways money and colonialism continue to intersect in complex and often deceptive ways.
Drawn Like Money (2005-06) is a drawing series I made based on the sensibilities of engraved banknotes, that was meant to bring critical attention to the way visual art and capitalism were intertwined in a colonial project that was initiated to link artmaking with economic development in Northern Canada in the 1960’s.
Here, the image on the right (with figure) is based on a photograph I made when I lived in Chesterfield Inlet, NU, (Igluligaajuk), in 1987. The landscape detail on the left refers to a photo I took in Baker Lake in 2005. For this montage I rephotographed two of my drawings from 2005, printed them, and later added a pattern of punched holes to the two paper prints. I then set them side-by-side like an open book or a pair of glasses: I was interested in pushing the artifactual quality of the piece, enhancing its sense of artifice to allude to the ways money and colonialism continue to intersect in complex and often deceptive ways.
Patrick Mahon is an artist, and a writer/curator who lives in London, ON, Canada. A Distinguished University Professor at Western University, he retired in 2024. Patrick Mahon’s artwork is held in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections.
A recent collaborative SSHRC-funded project, GardenShip and State, which Mahon initiated, generated an exhibition co-curated with Jeff Thomas, involving twenty artists and writers. The project premiered at Museum London (October 2021-January, 2022), garnering extensive interest including from ECH. It was re-presented at Thames Art Gallery in Summer 2025.
A recent collaborative SSHRC-funded project, GardenShip and State, which Mahon initiated, generated an exhibition co-curated with Jeff Thomas, involving twenty artists and writers. The project premiered at Museum London (October 2021-January, 2022), garnering extensive interest including from ECH. It was re-presented at Thames Art Gallery in Summer 2025.
