Face Tattoo Series By Stacey Lee Webber
This series of embroidered banknotes confronts power and permanence by stitching face tattoos onto the presidential figures on circulated U.S. currency. Tapping into tattoo counterculture—where rebellion, identity, and career paths intersect—each piece honors the visual language of punks, anarchists, and tattoo artists. Classic motifs like teardrops and word tattoos mark these once-sacred faces, challenging notions of respectability and value. My friends’s mom used to say, “Anywhere but the face” when it came to tattoos—that warning stuck. These works question who gets marked, who makes the mark, and what happens when defiance is stitched into the face of American history.