CV

Artist’s statement

My work is influenced by a Jamaican childhood and love of the paintings of The Group of Seven, seen on visits to my family in Canada.

I enjoy gardening, and walking in the countryside. I am continually in awe of the visual wealth of my surroundings and find recent scientific discoveries, about nature fascinating. I love the work of the Boyle Family, which selects random bits of nature and reproduces it in great realistic detail. Reliefs, fascinate me, and the idea of making constructions using cardboard, and recyling it is particularly appealing.

When painting, my main concerns are with colour, light and balance. My chief media are watercolours, acrylics or mixed media.

The abstract work stems from winning a bursary from Walk in the Land of Light, and the resulting training with Photo Shop which was brief, but very exciting. We then had two weeks to produce an exhibition. I chose to experiment, working in an abstract manner, which lead to the constructions, and the series relating to Foot and Mouth.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition London 

Modern Art, Oxford, 

Falmouth Art Gallery, 

The South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Exeter, and demonstrated at Art in Action. Monica’s work is in private collections in  America, Canada, the Caribbean, Japan and Australia. She has  undertaken various commissions. Her portrait of Roger Opie hangs in New College, Oxford.