“My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn’t even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.” (Jenny Ofill, Department of Speculation, 2014)

What does it mean to become an art monster? To never concern oneself with mundane things? To be a woman who chooses this path of ravenous art creation and art consumption?

This show invites the viewer into the journey of becoming a monster of sorts, the process of giving up the mundane for the promise of an artistic life.  What is the relationship between creativity and selfishness? What must be given up in order to give form to something else? How literally do we bring the monsters that haunt us and the monsters we embody into our visible work? How do we meet the monstrous parts of ourselves with curiosity and compassion?

ART MONSTER points toward what is made possible through artistic obsession and also what is lost when turning away from the mundane and ordinary. New worlds and beings come into creation, sure, but there are also dishes in the sink, calls left unanswered, reminders of a life left behind. ART MONSTER both celebrates what is found and grieves what is lost in pursuit a creative life.

All original rugwork is hand-stitched using wools and raw linen, and custom framed.