BANK OF E.LEE
THE BEGINNING
2018
What if you could see exactly how much a painting was worth?
The project began with this question in 2018, when I created my first gold coin paintings for Complex II, a group exhibition organized by artists Joe Renda and Sergio Farfan.
Each painting reduced the image to a single idea: value. There was no landscape, character, or narrative to take the viewer somewhere else. The coin was the subject, the measurement, and the value itself.
Each coin represented a fixed monetary amount. Rather than pricing the artwork by its size or the time it took to create, it was the number of coins painted that determined its price.
At the time, each coin represented $20.
As the work developed, the distinction between a painting depicting value and a painting whose value was determined by what it depicted became increasingly important.
FROM IMAGE TO OBJECT
2021
How do I bring these gold coin paintings to life?
For E.LEE: A Luxury Brand, presented at Spectrum Miami during Art Basel 2021, I worked with sculptor Jonathan Michael Johnson to turn the painted coins into physical objects.
We produced 220 gold coins designed to feel heavy in the hand, attract magnetically to one another, and stack awkwardly like cartoon money.
The coins could now be held, stacked, exchanged, collected, and owned. They moved beyond representations of money and actually started to behave like a currency.
In subsequent years, special-edition coins were created in collaboration with other artists.
And a print was introduced in 2022. If coins were the unit of value in paintings and sculptures, it made sense for prints on paper to be bills. Each bill represented $5, and a sheet of 18 bills (printed front and back) sold for $90.
BREAKING THE BANK
2023
What happens when the artwork becomes the system?
For Breaking the Bank, a solo exhibition with All Star Press, the gallery was transformed into what appeared to be a physical bank.
The exhibition brought together paintings, sculptures, and ideas that had developed around the gold coins and placed them within a built environment.
THE BANK OF E.LEE
2026–Present
After years of making paintings and sculptures that mimic currency, the work evolved into something larger.
The Bank of E.LEE is an ongoing conceptual artwork structured as a fictional financial institution. Each year, the Bank issues a limited reserve of currency-based artworks and invites a fixed number of Stakeholders to participate in a year-long cycle.
2026 ANNUAL ISSUANCE
A year-long conceptual artwork examining how value is collectively formed.
The 2026 issuance was limited to 100 gold coins and 16 Stakeholders. Each Stakeholder makes monthly deposits throughout the year, receiving one original artwork from the 2026 reserve at the conclusion of the cycle.
Each Stakeholder also receives an official Receipt of Deposit upon joining and a signed Certificate of Vested Stake at year's end.
The Bank makes value visible as something that is not simply inherent in an object, but created through scarcity, trust, time, and collective belief.
THE NEXT ISSUANCE
Enrollment for the 2026 Annual Issuance is closed.
The next enrollment period will be January 1–15, 2027.
Become a Stakeholder
Interested in participating in a future issuance? Leave your name and email to be notified when 2027 enrollment opens.