Unfinished Business sees Montoya continue to develop his dialogue spotlighting society's contemporaneous relationships with money and the economy at large. Using uncirculated bank notes, he creates canvases which boldly illuminate tensions; questioning preconceptions and offering new pertinence to complex social constructs. The clichéd titles of Montoya's work add an element of humour to his work enticing viewers into the debate.
Montoya views bank-notes as ready-made painted surfaces, as snapshots of time, theatres in which political propaganda and historic events play out. Yet these paintings come with their own pre-assigned commercial value which forms the basis of all international trade, relations and infrastructure. The result is artwork saturated with layers of meaning.
'For so many years, we fought nature to survive, and I wonder if, for some of us, the economy has taken its place. We´ve anchored our expectations for wellbeing, success and happiness on the economy. The economy has become a new god, which we all cease to understand. An incomprehensible mystery of which many prophets write about, at times becoming holy, and at others, an evil in disguise. For better or worse (interdependently inseparable), as inconclusive as things are in the sacred fields of religion – and economy, it seems that we have quite a distance to go before we conclude… all I pray is that in my time, it remains forever Unfinished Business.'
