MONICA MENDES
Monica was born in Belo Horizonte/MG but divides her time between the capital of Minas Gerais and Miami/USA.
Her childhood was surrounded by people who needed even more attention, such as her brothers with a much more severe dyslexia than hers, with that she grew up solving herself.
Only in 2016 did she decide to make art the focal point of her career, doing a master's degree in the area, since then she has focused her painting on Brazilian people, whenever possible alerting to prejudices and social injustices.
2022
ACHIEVEMENT
As an answer to the text that accompanies the short movie UN[BOX]ED, “When we peel back the layers - who decides who we really are and who creates the box we so often are told we fit within?”, the artist Monica Mendes, in the attempt of reinventing herself and understanding her limitations, shows in these two paintings, how she decided to turn her dream into a reality, "coming out of the box" to become a visual artist.
To illustrate this trajectory, the artist, in the presentation of her master's in fine arts final thesis, in Academy of Art University, in San Francisco, made the series "Self-Identity".
In the series, she brings, as important characters of her life, her fears and joys while facing the changes of paradigms of her life. In the second piece, "Achievement", that integrates a series of 11 paintings, Monica portrays herself immersed, working in her atelier, having a reflection about the first piece of the conjunct, "Inspiration", that portrays her first influence, her grandmother. This mirroring between the two pieces also insinuates a learning difficulty while she was learning how to read and write. "Self-Identity '', the first series of the artist, therefore, means literally the freedom that Monica was searching for, and at the same time, represents her responsibility at taking her life into her own hands.
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Oscar D'Ambrosio
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VISUAL ARTS
2023
WORLD'S SOUL
The universe of urban communities is treated with the presence of a circle that appears, at the top, in black; and, at the bottom, blank. This visual play of the image indicates the dialogue between the clarity of the sky and the gloom of darkness. This is not a simplistic dichotomy, but a symbolic complexity that relativizes the thinking and living of daily life in the Brazilian peripheries.
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Oscar D'Ambrosio
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VISUAL ARTS
MONICA
by herself
I paint my surroundings and the Brazilian people, warning against prejudice and social injustice. I choose to create
figurative and/or realistic form, images made with oil paint on linen or mixed media on cardboard that
can contribute to building a better society.