JeffreyScottGallery.com

Contact: Barry Louvis                                                                 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone: 818-991-8008
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WHAT'S IN JEFFREY SCOTT'S WALLET?  ART!
Award-Winning Artist Turns Filthy Lucre Into Eye-Popping Pop Art

Hollywood, CA -- Most artists worry about turning their art into money, but Jeffrey Scott is more concerned about how he's going to turn his money into art. The first artist to use real U.S. currency as his "canvas", Scott started transforming cash into art in 1975. After a three-decade creative detour he's doing it again, only this time with the aid of digital technology.

Scott's first piece, American Flag, was made of 117 crisp, new one dollar bills placed behind transparent red stripes and a blue star field silk-screened onto clear Plexiglas. His second piece, 1776, a Bennington flag created in celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial, is currently hanging in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. So who is Jeffrey Scott and where did he come up with his unique artistic style? The answer lies in his chromosomes.

If creative talent is inherited then Scott triple-dipped in the gene pool. His father, Norman Maurer, was a successful comic book artist who, with his partner, Joe Kubert, invented 3-D comics. His grandfather was Moe Howard of The Three Stooges who, with brothers Curly and Shemp, became comic icons. And his fourth cousin was, all by himself, the renowned escape artist, Harry Houdini. So what did Jeffrey Scott do with his genes? The short answer is: just about everything.

Over the years, Scott has inked comic books for Disney, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera characters, performed in the role of his grandfather, Moe, on TV commercials and Las Vegas stage, written movies, and penned hundreds of animated cartoons for which he received three Emmy Awards and the Humanitas Prize. While doing all this, there was always one thing percolating in the back of Scott's mind-making money. But not making it like the rest of us struggle to do. In Scott's creative universe making money means making money into art.

"I came up with the idea when my father produced a movie in the 1960's called Who's Minding the Mint?" says Scott. "The opening titles were photographed over sheets of real U.S. currency from one dollar bills to a one-hundred-thousand dollar bill." So impressed was Scott by all that green on the screen that he wondered if it might not create a similar effect via graphic art. It did. And it still does.

Today, Scott has replaced his X-acto knife with a computer and his silk screen with a state-of-the-art giclee printer.  Digital technology allows him to print on transparent film with a greater range of subject matter.  He places his imaginative visions over crisp, new bills that he meticulously puts together into great big sheets that look like they just rolled off the press at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing.

Scott recently launched JeffreyScottGallery.com to showcase his current work which spans from passion to politics. Scott's Kim Jong-B'il depicts North Korea's leader (known for counterfeiting U.S. hundred dollar bills) made out of hundreds himself. In Capitol Punishment, Scott has made the U.S. Capitol out of money, conjuring a moody image of Congress' unrestrained spending. There's $50 Cigars, with great, big Cohibas rolled in fifty bucks of cash instead of tobacco leaves, giving the viewer a mental image of what goes up in smoke with every puff, and Loaded Dice, big, red, Las Vegas-style dice that are loaded with money. And for those who like art that really packs a wallop, Scott's The Cost of War is a big, 55 x 34 inch atomic mushroom cloud exploding over 117 fiery one dollar bills.

Scott likes to use money in his art because it creates so many varying reactions in people. "When you view my art I think you'll find that money does talk," says Scott. He aptly calls his style artistic capitalism, and like a capitalist who uses money to make a profit, Scott's profit is a powerful aesthetic and emotional effect on the viewer.
 
In contrast to many artists, who are conflicted about money, Scott embraces it, albeit with a visual wit that cuts in both directions. Is he for money or against it? You'll have to view his artworks and decide for yourself. His current online show, "The Art of Money", unveils over 50 big, dynamic pieces of Jeffrey Scott's money art which can be viewed and purchased at www.JeffreyScottGallery.com.  

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For more information, or to schedule an interview with Jeffrey Scott, contact Barry Louvis at 818-991-8008 or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it