Artwork Title: Kash Kurrency

Kash Kurrency

Cj Hendry

Despite dropping out of university, it seems Australian artist Cj Hendry has made it. On Monday night, the 26-year old from Brisbane handed over one of her prized drawings to American rapper Kanye West. The image, titled Kash Kurrency, is a hyper-realistic pen drawing of West's face on a $100 U.S. note. Hendry is already on her way to becoming an art-world darling. Her pen on paper drawings, which can take up to 200 hours to create, are based on her love of designer pieces and often feature crumpled Louis Vuitton and Gucci shopping bags. She told Mashable she came up with the Kanye crumpled note concept while she was working on her handbag drawings. Her manager put her in touch and she was able to present the work at his Yeezus show in Brisbane on Monday night. Hendry described the moment as "bloody incredible." "He has been such an incredible inspiration for me for many years so to finally get the opportunity to present my work to him was like a dream," Hendry said." "As I waked into the room it was unusual to see him so calm with the rest of his team. He greeted me with a huge friendly smile and said 'Hi Cj, we have been looking forward to meeting you'. "The first thing I did was say "f*ck the handshake, bring it in for a hug'." Two years ago, Hendry dropped out of an architecture degree to chase her passion for traditional, non-digital media. "After having left school I enrolled in architecture and immersed myself in a world of lines, rendering, and architectural history," Hendry said. "It was a completely captivating degree and I spent hour upon hour dissecting oversize black and white scale plans. All my assignments were hand drawn with a pen and ruler as I couldn't figure out how to navigate CAD and Revit." Hendry decided to focus on drawing for one year. "I made a deal with myself," she says. "If I didn't sell anything in 365 days I would re-enroll in university and go back to what I was doing. "Luckily, after a couple of months I got my first major sale and there was no way I would ever set foot in a university campus again." Hendry used her passion for designer clothes to create her work, and began posting the results to Instagram. Her first sale was no small achievement. She sold a drawing of a pair of R.M. Williams boots to a Sydney art collector for $10,000. Her work was then spotted by The Cool Hunter, who organized Hendry's first showing. She sold all of her work via Instagram before the show even started. Hendry now sells her large-scale pieces of luxury handbags and shoes for up to $50,000. Now Kanye has acquired one, the price seems sure to jump again. [https://mashable.com/2014/09/15/australia-artist-cj-hendry-kanye/?europe=true#XmBXfuEe_sqD]
Uploaded on Jun 9, 2018 by Suzan Hamer

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