watercolor on paper, 66 x 122 cm (framed: 76 x 132 cm)
Monika Malewska was born in Warsaw. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba in Canada and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is currently a professor of art at Juniata College in the United States.
One of Malewska’s series of paintings consists of large-format watercolors depicting compositions of bacon slices resembling wreaths. Their symmetrical forms bring to mind the inkblots of the Rorschach test. The artist is interested in juxtaposing the formal elegance of the compositions with the banality and everyday nature of bacon, as well as surreal decorative elements such as flowers, butterflies, and fruit. These playful, fanciful, and somewhat grotesque “not-quite-still lifes” combine references to historical painting genres with contemporary visual culture. The winding strands of bacon introduce a sense of movement into the compositions, breaking the static nature of the traditional still life and reinterpreting the vanitas convention through humor, absurdity, and visual play.
Malewska works primarily in the fields of painting, drawing, and photography. Her works have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in the United States and Europe, including the Phoenix Gallery, Blank Space Gallery, and Denise Bibro Fine Art Gallery in New York; the Blue Star Complex in San Antonio, Texas; the Benton Museum in Storrs and the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California, the Piękna Gallery and the Elektor Gallery at the Mazovian Institute of Culture in Warsaw, and the Galerie Bessaud in Paris.
Her work has been featured in the art and culture section of *HuffPost*, as well as in *Direct Art Magazine*, *Hi-Fructose*, *Fresh Paint Magazine*, and *Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture*.
