This work was first shown at the international exhibition "March Cats" in Minsk in 2009. When the world financial crisis went into top gear, when the politicians of all countries doubled the power of the dollar and eagerly offered to introduce the single world reserve currency the artist Sergey Stelmashonok created a bank note – "one puss".
The artist is sure that catcurrency will arouse positive emotions in people of all nationalities because in most countries the cat is a symbol of comfort. Unlike the currency of some states that tend to be one-coloured (for example, the green dollar of the blue euro), "pusses" will be universally stripy. In the bond its nominal value is written in 40 different languages –from a Chinese dialect to Esperanto.
The "pusses" are also unique because they will be one-sided. This will enable people to glue "pusses" together and have new bonds at your disposal which will make mutual settlement of accounts much easier.
Belarusian visitors of the exhibition praised the project highly, because they already have unique experience with zoo currency: in the 90-s Belarusian rouble bonds depicted animals and a common name for this type of currency was "hares".
By the way, how many cats can you see in this bond? The right answer is 16.
When a cat comes to an office – that is absolutely great! For the cat, but not for the office workers. Because the cat can climb and penetrate anywhere, even into the most out-of-the-way places. And no offer of a lunch-box sausage will make the cat ...
Many years ago women had to put on corsets, which were like bird coops, hoop skirts, lacy collars, make luxuriant hair-dos in order to look beautiful… If we also remember that there were also veils, huge hats, fans, gloves, palanquins and heavy ...
How to draw a homo sapiens? Dot-n-dot, line-n-line – that’s a human being. It is easy with people. And if you draw a circle, two triangular and several lines (just like in a bar code) you can get a cat sapiens. Now, let us look closely at the face ...
Would you like to play with a cat? And if it were as big as a human being and you were as small as a cat? And what would happen if in this case a cat wanted to play with you… To roll you on the ground holding you with its sharp teeth, bring you into ...
Everyone knows of the healing properties of the fair sex. A woman can work magic upon a man and bring him back to life even without touching him. This skill is priceless. Especially now, when the doctors of the post-soviet countries sometimes have ...
Everyone knows cats can see in the dark. And if you light them up with a lantern for example you can see their eyes shining. Once the artist was asked why the eyes of the cat in the picture shine. "I don’t know," – said the shy artist, dropped his ...
The stained-glass windows of Notre Dame de Paris shine in the dark, they attracted people’s attention for hundreds of years. Many modern artists also created their stained-glass windows, for example Mark Chagall. But none of the artists made a cat ...
The great artist Kazimir Malevich had a cat names Square. It was huge, fat and grey. But Malevich was fond of looking for a black cat in a dark room that is why he used to paint his cat black (the artist simply didn’t have other colours). The cat ...
Nobody knows why cats are so wild about grass. Even the great science-fiction writer Clifford Simak who wrote "All Flesh Is Grass" doesn’t know that. But notice: it is not by chance that cats like to chew house plants – they seem to get green energy ...
It is known that cats can hunt at night. But in order to be successful one should spent a lot a lot of time lying-in-wait. While watching the surrounding area becomes kind of closer and it becomes part of your realm, you become the ruler, watching ...
This picture is already 30 years old - this was one of the very first cat-themed pictures by Sergey Stelmashonok. It was shown for the first time at the exhibition of young artists’ works in the House of Cinema. But the exhibition frightened the ...
People tend to idealize old times, and not without a reason: chivalry, beautiful gowns, bright life full of adventures. Still, even today we have an opportunity to scratch a romantic message to our Mistress, to perform a cat’s concert (serenade) ...
Site Cats & Dreams features a collection of posters, images, drawings and illustrations by the Belarusian artist Sergey Stelmashonok. Sergey has been illustrating articles in different newspapers and magazines for many years but his main passion is depicting cats. Each and every cat in his images is special. Take a look and enjoy.