In a world obsessed with speed, perfection, and surface, my art invites you to slow down — to feel, to remember, and to question what we truly value.
As a mixed media artist, I explore the interplay between value, destruction, and creation. I work almost exclusively with shredded currency and resin — one symbolizing the fleeting power of economics, the other the urge to preserve what cannot be held. Together, they form a visual language of memory, transformation, and quiet resistance.
I use decommissioned U.S. dollars and German Deutsche Marks — fragments of systems once absolute. No longer valid, these shredded bills become the foundation of my work. I layer, embed, and suspend them in resin like fossils in amber. Each piece meditates on value — monetary, emotional, and cultural — while inviting reflection on what we consider precious.
Shredded money, once a symbol of power and stability, becomes a fragmented relic. Reassembling it into intricate compositions challenges our perception of worth and beauty, and questions the systems that shape our lives. My transformation of these materials mirrors cycles of collapse and renewal — financial, societal, and personal.
Trained in classical painting, I turned to mixed media not in rejection, but in return — to instinct, texture, and truth. My art is shaped by my story: as a woman, a mother, and an artist in her prime. These are not limits — they are layers, sealed into the work like resin: vulnerable, strong, and alive.
Raised between Romanian tradition and Western urgency, I carry both sacred memory and broken modernity. I don’t create to decorate. I create to hold, to echo, and to stay.
In an age of noise and speed, I choose what’s been forgotten, shredded, and made invisible — and give it presence, voice, and soul.
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Born in Romania in May 1971, Doina-Mihaela Iacob is a self-taught artist whose lifelong passion for painting and drawing has defined her creative journey. In her early years, she worked in the Romanian cartoon industry, where she honed her technical skill and imaginative storytelling. This formative period was followed by mastering the Galle technique, a complex method of reverse painting on glass, which deepened her precision and appreciation for detail.
In 2004, Doina-Mihaela emigrated to the United States with her family, bringing with her a rich cultural heritage and a deep artistic curiosity. Now based near Chicago, Illinois, she has participated in numerous group exhibitions across the state, continuing to expand her artistic language.
Her recent body of work explores the transformation of value and material through an innovative technique that uses shredded currency, meticulously arranged and glued onto canvas. These experimental compositions reflect her fascination with texture, symbolism, and the intersection of art and economy—where destruction becomes creation, and fragments find new meaning.
