PAINTING Monica paints mainly in oils, acrylics, and occasionally watercolors. Her style could be viewed as figurative and fairly eclectic, due mainly to her drive to explore different subjects, styles, approaches and sizes. Although she has painted many landscapes, the human element is prevalent in most of her work. For several years she worked intensively on portraits and the human figure - capturing people on canvas became a quest, especially people whose expression or posture reflect their inner life, people involved in their own passion, people at their trade, doing what they love, or interacting with each other. Most of these human studies are part of her series of Mexican scenes. In spite of her travels, a great part of her art is firmly planted on native Mexican soil. Mexico's people, colors, lights and shadows have had an indelible influence in her work, and her frequent travels to Mexican towns continue to be a never-ending source of inspiration. MOSAIC In 2005, Monica's medium and visions underwent a dramatic and serendipitous transformation: "I had worked occasionally with mosaic before, but last summer, when I was given the opportunity to create a large-scale mosaic covering a playground structure at Summit School, I developed an unexpected passion for mosaic and mixed media. The solidity and intrinsic character and expression of stone, porcelain, glass and ceramic have lured me into a whole new dimension of creative possibilities. I am working on a series of abstract pieces that will bear little resemblance to my previous work, but that will, I hope, be able to stand on their own and be cohesive amongst themselves." Since then, Monica immersed herself completely in the medium and has created several gallery mosaics, numerous community projects and two large-scale public art instalations. Monica has always been bothered by the fact that Monica art is typically too far removed from everyday life, to be viewed exclusively in galleries and on walls. The resilience and durability of "hard materials" offers her the possibility of finding an intersection between art and functionality by creating mosaic furniture and ornamental objects, so called "functional art", or even structural art, such as murals, benches, columns, floors or fountains. Under commission, such pieces could also be personalized by integrating elements and designs of significance to the client. HOME