Divine, over an image of Generalissimo Francisco Franco
 
Andre Levy must be quite the draftsman, to paint such compelling and amusing images on the unforgiving terrain (copper, nickel) of a coin measuring no more than an inch square. But that’s what the artist, who was born in Sao Paulo but is currently based out of Frankfurt, has done. A cheeky sense of humor (he clearly loves the Simpsons) and a sharp eye have surely aided him in his quest to take over the Internet (which he seems to have done).

Benjamin Sutton of Hyperallergic got in touch with Levy per email: “I’m a graphic designer and split my time between an advertising job and my personal projects, which include street art and illustration. The most notorious of those projects, so far, is Tales You Lose, which became popular on Instagram and Tumblr,” Levy told Hyperallergic. “I never collected coins. What initially made me accumulate a few was the fact that I keep forgetting them in my pockets. I learned, though, that outside its territory of origin the coin leaves behind its illusional value as currency to carry a value defined by its carrier. I saw those coins as massively reproduced sculptures, and felt they could be turned into templates for something richer. Painting the coins was a way to give those metal pieces some room for interpretation. The pop characters were a way to bring in narratives as strong as the original ones and enable the new stories when people relate both characters.”
 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Leonardo, over Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man
 

The Flash, on a Greek Olympic coin
 

Princess Leia, over an image of British Queen Elizabeth II
 

René Magritte’s “The Son of Man,” on a Chinese coin
 

YouTube error icon, over Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 

Amy Winehouse, on a French coin
 

Apu from The Simpsons, on a Thai coin
 

Asterix and Obelix, on a French coin
 

Swiftwind, on an Irish coin
 

Simpsons doughnut
 
via Hyperallergic