Eleven thousand, nine hundred and fifty-nine

Maria Cruz was born in Manila in 1957. She first studied art at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila before relocating to Sydney in 1981 to attend the Sydney College of the Arts. In 1985-86 she undertook post-graduate studies at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf with Professor Klaus Rinke, and subsequently returned to Australia.

Between 1990 and 2008 she held teaching positions at Australian National University, Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Western Sydney. In these roles she taught numerous artists now held in the collection, among them: Julie Fragar, David Griggs, Fiona Lowry, Nell, Tim Silver and Gemma Smith. Eleven thousand, nine hundred and fifty-nine 2017 belongs to the artist’s One million dollar series. Commenced in 2006, the series is comprised of paintings made carefully tracing one dollar or euro coins, and then filling the circles with watercolour or oil in various colour orchestrations. Her stated goal is to paint one million dollars. Each painting is titled according to the number of coins traced for their composition, literally the sum of the work’s constituent parts. The time and labour of Cruz’s work is thus by her paintings; each tracing maps a duration of time and equivalent dollar value, like hourly wages mapped by the clock. The circular form of the coin also evokes the Filipino word, “oo”, “yes”, repeated, seemingly endlessly across the canvas.