Mona Monroe

I create a visual language that intertwines with emblematic, ciphered imagery. Fragmented histories inform the deeply personal work that uses abstracted images to create magical narratives. The work pursues the connections between what we observe on the inside and outside.

I work in multiples finding repetition a tool to guide the experience of time. The core is composed of overall calligraphic drawing that reveals itself later as an ancient language. Materials are added, hidden and subtracted, a letting go of remembrances. Revealing and obscuring elements to be discovered becomes a ritualistic process. Using a saturated palette, layers of paint are built up using a variety of methods. The surface is heavily worked, the skin excavated to expose the skeleton. Map-like punctuation marks are added to clarify meaning.  Vessels, totems and biomorphic creatures appear as mystical emblems of a veiled identity. A web of shapes flows through space allowing one to view them from above and below. I often use familial cloth that I bury outside over the winter to gather talismanic properties. Sewing and binding are used to offer protection to the viewer.

I’ve always been attracted to the spiritual as a way to escape reality that is sometimes uncomfortable for me to live in. The work explores themes of loss, searching, survival, endurance and adaptation. The personal symbolism reflects my subconscious recollections of past memories. A sense that everything cannot always be explained emerges as playfulness.