American Expense - Kristin Simmons

American Expense 38.1 x 60. 9 cm / 15 x 24 in. Original Hand-Pulled Screenprint Edition of 50, 2016   When you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, their response is often “rich and famous.” That’s not a job. Credit cards make “wealth” an attainable illusion, launching money from the material realm into the conceptual. Living on credit allows for less concrete, and less conscious consumption, effectively disconnecting spending from its real-world implications.   Credit cards, together with medicine and drugs, collude to disconnect and suspend reality. The Holy Prophets series serves as a reminder that these destructive values had been exported and become a kind of global phenomenon. “American” addiction to consumerism and appearing rich is now “Expressed” worldwide.