Commission an artwork by Monica Perez Vega
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Monica Perez Vega is a painter and sculptor exploring ideas around renewal and change.
Monica uses her mediums as potential collaborators in the outcome of her projects, embracing accidents and the challenges posed by misbehaving materials.
Monica is largely inspired by her time spent living in multiple locations across the globe.
Monica is an expressionistic paintings visual artist whose work explores ideas of uncertainty and adaptation. She paints in a range of media and her sculptures are assembled from found, gifted and reclaimed material, including former paintings. It is about letting go as well as the circularity of life and process, echoing the cycles of nature.
Style & Approach
Her imagined landscapes sit between nostalgia and unease. Originally from California, she has lived in Montreal, Amsterdam, London and currently Birmingham, UK. Her memories of home are warped by a changing landscape, and her experiences of continually starting over have led to a practice which investigates cycles of change. There is a fluidity and resilience to her practice which is guided by incident. She is interested in the potential between renewal or collapse and relies on disruption as a search for hope amid precarious uncertainty.
Skies and trees are ongoing themes in her work. Skies are about transience as well as a certain presence in the moment. They are also a part of a wider concern with the environment, impacted by experiences of home. She is also interested in the meditative aspect of skies and their emotional range, as well as the ambiguity between sunrise or sunset/ beginning or end. Trees, on the other hand are anthropomorphic figures which tell a story of steady resilience. Tree stumps are headless figures; embodiments of disruption, but also places where life quietly thrives. Bark is also a skin; a protector of vulnerability. Trees elicit memories of home and act as markers to time. As one who often feels lost between place, trees represent an aspire for rootedness.
Monica Perez Vega’s Early Career & Exhibitions
Monica has an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts. In 2016, she co-founded Hiraeth Magazine and Podcast. In 2020, she founded Small Works Art Gallery, an artist-led initiative and platform selling small works by emerging and established artists based in and around the UK. Recent exhibitions include the ArtWorks Open 2020 at Barbican Arts Group Trust, London, RBSA Prize Exhibition 2020, Birmingham and The Collector's Eye 2020 at LEMA Mobili, London, 2020.