"Gravity of the Unsubstantiated brings together the works of Michelle Grabner and Monika Plioplyte. In their respective works, the body becomes the link to spirituality, nature, and the everyday. Grabner often acknowledges the presence of a body engaged in work and craft focusing on materials that suggest engagement with domesticity and everyday life. Through an idiosyncratic painting process, she has developed a minimalist style that references the spiritual. Plioplyte uses elements of patterning and repetition also in a ritualistic fashion that suggests the body in motion. Grabner and Plioplyte find commonality in the process and the materiality of the act of making. Both artists consider natural elements like patterning that are then juxtaposed with objects that are brought into the outdoors like picnic table cloths and clothing. The different elements of these works are contextualized in a living space that also acknowledges the domestic and outdoor spaces of Boulder, CO. Rare Visions Gallery Project is proud to present the works of these two thought-provoking artists."
☼ ONLINE EXHIBITIONS ☼
Currently I am included in an online exhibition “Painting” curated by Lavaughan Jenkins. The show focuses on six female artists who are redefining the parameters of the practice by using a painterly approach to materials other than paint or using paint in new and innovative ways. Musa Collective is presenting the show on their website and regularly posts images from the exhibit on Musa’s Instagram page throughout the six weeks of the exhibit.
You can view my exhibiting page here, as well as other participating artists on Musa Collective's website.
Monika Plioplyte, I Have Seen Myself Backwards (nr.5), 2021, digitally collaged using scanned images, image part of "Painting" exhibition at Musa Collective Boston.
My new series I Have Seen Myself Backwards was specifically created for the Musa Collective's online exhibition "Painting". Since this exhibition is named quote, unquote "painting", it led me to think about artists who have used modes of alternative painting. David Lynch's inspiration to make films is said to have come from seeing a gust of wind blow into his studio one day and picturing the landscape painting he was working on becoming animated. Arguably, all of Lynch's films can be described as "paintings that can move". In I Have Seen Myself Backwards my intention was to work towards a similar idea. I started out by laying on top of the scanner bed and conjuring images that were flat depictions of my body, in some cases combined with my drawings that I wrapped around myself. I then collaged them digitally using deep black as a backdrop to situate these figures to look like they are emerging and disappearing all at the same time. These images are about the body becoming a surreal animated force in a nonlinear dream sequence.
Curated by Lavaughan Jenkins. Artists: Sunny Moxin Chen, Destiny Palmer, Loretta Park, Monika Plioplyte, Rosemary Taylor, Elizabeth Thach.
Viral Ecologies, Issue #2
www.viralecologies.us
Earlier this year, I had a chance to create a digital page for Viral Ecologies Issue #2. Viral Ecologies is a digital platform created by Rosemary H. Hall and Saffronia Downing to explore diverse systems and ecologies of our time.
Monika Plioplyte, Visual Notebook (detail), 2021, part of Viral Ecologies Issue #2
"Visual Notebook by Monika Plioplyte is a pictorial essay exploring creation as a state of constant flux. Utilizing visual language to develop a personal spiritualism, the notebook maps how iteration creates and mutates the body into forms one could not have imagined from their original state."
You can view my piece Visual Notebook here and the rest of the participating artists on Viral Ecologies website. Here is a link to a very thoughtful review about Viral Ecologies and Issue #2 in NewCity magazine written by Cecilia Resende Santos.
Curated by Rosemary H. Hall and Saffronia Downing. Artists : Maggie Wong, Daniel Robles, Monika Plioplyte, Robert Lundberg, Alexandria Lakind, Tracie Hayes, Jimena Garcia Alvarez-Buylla, India Boxall, Magdalena Bermudez.
☼ RECENT PRESS ☼
60wrd/min COVID Edition: Alex Chitty, Monika Plioplyte, Barbara ...
In this weekly column, art critic Lori Waxman adapts her 60wrd/min project to review work by artists whose practice has been affected by the pandemic. Waxman covers shows that have been cancelled, postponed, shuttered, made remote or opened by limited appointment, as well as art made during quarantine.
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☼ UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS '21 ☼
November (exact dates TBA) - Solo exhibition at Boundary Space, Chicago, IL.
December (exact dates TBA) - group exhibition at Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL.
Date TBA - group exhibition at Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL.
Thank you for reading, I hope you get to see some of these shows in person!
Best,
Monika
www.monikaplioplyte.com
