Oriane Stender, who has been described as the ‘secret love child of Andy Warhol and Anni Albers,’ was born in San Francisco, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and UC Berkeley. She now lives and works in Brooklyn, utilizing appropriation and her own critique of materialism in an effort to balance the conceptual with the visceral, awarding equal weight to both the intellectual and the craft.

She began working with currency in the late ‘90s because everyone has a relationship with money, regardless of its nature. While focusing on either obtaining, saving, or spending money, most do not often really look at these ubiquitous pieces of paper. She transforms these items of cultural and personal relevance, including currency, books, and photographs, by writing, drawing, cutting, weaving and stitching, thus creating a new object with multiple layers and meanings. By drawing attention to their individual visual elements, Stender allows and encourages the viewer to slow down and experience everyday objects that are seen and touched in daily life, but not necessarily looked at or thought about in great detail.

Stender’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. It is represented in the collections of Centerbridge LLC, New York, NY; Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/M.H. de Young Memorial Museum; JP Morgan Chase, New York, NY; Synopsys Incorporated, Mountain View, CA; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR; International Collage Center, Milton, PA, as well as over 100 private collections.