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Monika Malewska's artwork has been shaped by her lifelong history of relocation. Monika was born in 1974 in Warsaw, Poland during a
time of intense political repression, and she immigrated to Berlin, Germany and later to Winnipeg, Canada in the 1980s. Monika is
accomplished and versatile in a great number of art media, such as painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and, recently, video.
Her photographic oeuvre has been inspired by her international background and her travels in different countries such as
Canada, Germany, Poland, and Mexico. Her work has been shown in Canada at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, as well as various places in the
U.S., such as the Satellite Space Gallery in the Blue Star Complex, San Antonio, Texas, the Benton Museum, Storrs Connecticut and
the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut, E3 Gallery, New York, to name just a few.
Monika has also participated in a number of presentations, including a paper titled "The Beautiful and the Repulsive: Reinventing the
Seventeenth Century Still-life Genre through Photography and Painting," which she read at the Food Representation in Literature,
Film and Other Arts, 2nd Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Conference, and a lecture at the New Britain Museum of American Art in
New Britain, Connecticut titled Refiguring the Nude, Historical and Contemporary Perceptions of the Female Form in Photography.
Monika received her BFA degree from the University of Manitoba and her MFA degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
She is currently teaching photography at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut. She has also taught
photography at the University of Connecticut as well as painting and drawing classes at Southern Connecticut State University
and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Images are copyrighted, and are used with the permission of the artists. They may not be copied or
redistributed.
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| Still Life with a Tongue on Pink |
Still Life with Chickens and Papaya |
Chickens in a Guitar Case |
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| Octopus and a Papaya |
Octopus in a Toaster |
Still-life with Rabbit Carcass |
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| Still-life with Boar Heads |
Still-life with Cow's Head |
about my images
These photographs were taken with a medium format camera and personally printed on 24" x 20" glossy paper. They are an attempt
to reinvent the seventeenth century Netherlands theme of Vanitas in still-life paintings. The inherent aesthetic qualities of
these photographed culinary arrangements are enhanced by flowers, attractive draperies, decorative or functional objects, and
various amenities such as a silver serving tray, ornamented candleholders, and an ordinary toaster.
My primary focus of representation, however, is meat. I feel that in spite of the grandiose history of painting meat, an
image of carcasses displayed elegantly in its "raw nudity" can still appear disarmingly surprising and actually beautiful.
The rich tonalities and textures of the fabric of the meat that I photograph are manifest in a diverse collection of animals
and animal parts--from octopuses, chickens and rabbits, to fragmented boar heads, cow heads and tongues. All of these
anthropomorphic characters are orchestrated in macabre yet seductively beautiful compositions which, when removed from their
ordinary context, are transformed into almost theatrical stage arrangements akin to Peter Greenaway's movie sets or Peter-Joel
Witkin's disturbingly beautiful photographs.
The use of natural light and an objective camera lens makes my images appear unquestionably sharp in their carnal lusciousness.
I am fascinated by the ironic and playful contrast between the typically repulsive subject choice of raw meat and traditionally
beautiful elements such as flowers and colorful fruits. In combining the familiar and the shocking, I hope to bridge humor and
horror and to create a realm of imaginary, fantastic, mystifying objects that blur reality and dream.
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