The past year, I’ve been exploring historical aesthetics of fiat currency, joining back up with a series I originally created in 2006. A question my work has asked is what it could mean to shape society’s values if the paper money we transact with carried messages from leaders who are concerned with reshaping present systems in order to construct a better future for the many. In creating these portraits, I sought to discover how I could treat this as a legitimate part of my larger series and not just an outlier piece done for CoinDesk Most Influential 2020.