Raymond Waters
Raymond Waters
Penny for Your Thoughts
This piece is made from interlocking, notched/glued pennies, and is about honouring memory and community. The penny itself holds the memories/travels of its holder as it journeys from hand to hand, year-to year, decade to decade. On a societal level, the penny shows that no matter how small, every contribution counts and when joined together, the impact is great. On a political level, the penny is a call for investment in healthcare, including brain health.
About The Artist
Raymond Waters is a multimedia visual artist whose work explores the tensions between objects and social, cultural, political and economic discourse to highlight the meaning and evolution of “value.” He re-uses and repurposes objects, including film, flags, coins and cardboard, to explore human constructs.
Waters graduated from Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) in 1989 and was awarded a painting scholarship to study in New York. His work has been sold at top contemporary auction houses including New York’s Phillips de Pury, now Phillips, and shown at art fairs like ArtHamptons, Art Miami and the Toronto International Art Fair. His pieces are also in private and corporate collections around the globe.
In his new series, Waters explores the social construction of homelessness. Specifically, he transforms and challenges the language of currency (coins) by repurposing this economically imbued object, casting it into life-size human figures to highlight this global crisis – ultimately using currency (change) to effect change.