Yelena Popova, this certifies that. Image 23.23.03.868 23.06.2016, 2016

This edition by Yelena Popova was produced by Nottingham Contemporary on the occasion of the exhibition This Certifies That, 2016.

Yelena Popova’s edition for Nottingham Contemporary takes as its source the artists specially commissioned work for her 2016 exhibition - a digital animation that the artist collaborated with Noel Murphy, a computer programmer.

Together, they develop a code that generates images based on the Euro banknote. The code randomly produces different versions of banknotes in denominations ranging from 5 to 500. Each sequence is different, as the elements that make up the image constantly shift in potentially infinite patterns. Intricate and detailed, these guilloche line-drawings are used in banknote design to deter forgery.

Popova’s copperplate etching is inspired by the early printing plates used to produce banknotes. To create the etching, Popova has had to redraw each element of the image in illustrator. The image in this print is therefore not a still from her film sequence but a fake, a detailed forgery created by the artist’s hand. Each image in the sequence in This Certifies That has a unique number at the top left, marking an exact hour, minute, second, millisecond then date, month and a year. The unique number on the image used for Popova’s etching is 23 June 2016 - the day the UK's EU referendum took place.

All profits raised from the sale of this limited-edition work support Nottingham Contemporary’s free programme of exhibitions, educational activities and research programmes.

Yelena Popova (B. 1978) is a Russian born, Nottingham based artists. Popova explores painting "outside the frame” and draws on the different histories of abstraction, from vanishing forms to the abstractions of capital.

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