20/20 Vision, Second Edition

The Art of Contemporary University Printmaking

Curtis William Readel

Growing up it was the witnessed experiences of my family that shaped my view of modern socio-political ideas of wealth. My father provided a comfortable life with little worries and worked at a job were he was appreciated and respected; or so I though. When I started to earn an income, I spoke with my dad about finances and found that the life he had provided was beyond his means. The job that he once loved had realized that they could replace my father with two younger, less qualified people and wouldn’t have to pay as much. They changed his job title and responsibilities hopeful of a poor review, creating a reason to let my father go.

The success that he has achieved was accomplished through hard work and perseverance, though cutting corners is the preferred method today. The incentive is to have the biggest and best, flaunting your accomplishments rather than be content with feeling the pride in oneself. Success has shifted from subjective ideas of comfort and happiness to more quantifiable pretenses of image and the material. Standards of wealth are being formulated by our superficial relationship to those around us, causing people to desire more from doing less. Our need to cling to a material representation of wealth has created an unbalanced power system in which financial security is utilized as a means for personal exploitation.

Reflecting and responding to my personal interactions with money and success, realities of economic standing and the hidden truths of maintaining a veil of financial normalcy, I construct commentaries on images of power, consumptive greed, and the absurdity within our current social evaluations of wealth and success. My desire for money has led me to use it in my work; from referencing images to using actual currency, the process is one of obsession and toil. The money that passes through our hands is the new master in our lives and through printed matter I create semi-satiric, political commentaries illustrating the various complications of my own reservations and struggles and distorted views dealing with wealth and success.