MONIQUE ALLAIN
North Salem, NY
CREATIVE DISCIPLINE-
Visual Arts
PRIMARY MEDIUM(S)-
Multimedia artist
ARTIST STATEMENT-
I am an interdisciplinary artist and independent researcher by vocation. Foreigner everywhere, I was born in São Paulo from French & Mexican parents, and have been living in NY since 2018. My roots and ties are in all these places. As a socio-environmentalist, I love nature and people. Being claustrophobic, I preserve my freedom and do not fit into general categories. I became a biologist until I realized life was to be lived with poetry. In 2000 I went back to study and started creating. After completing a Bachelors degree in Visual Arts (2007), I was awarded an art residence at Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, 2008), and received a Master’s degree in Visual Arts (2011). In my studio I am a wizard. That’s where I hide my secrets, where the process of “doing” happens! In my cauldron, dreams, fears, visions and pieces of existance are mixed and transformed into colors, shapes and textures. I know the potion I want to make and for which purpose. The result comes naturally, but it is always a surprise. With my feet in the air and my head in the clouds, I live and create in search of my place and my peers. I wish to inhabit, establish bonds. My artworks are experimental and procedural. Throught them, I investigate identity and its dynamic relation with space, time and otherness. Videos, photographs and paintings are used to create installations, interventions and performances, with public participation. I explore mixtures of medias to expand undefined zones of transition and obtain situations of encounter and exchange, in which a present continuous time can be experienced. But what is the present now? We are in a LIMINAL TIME. The past will never come back and we do not know what the future will be. I left the city and moved to a quiet area surrounded by nature. Since then the focus has been on connecting and grounding with this new place. Isolation has stimulated concentration and introspection. Being in the middle of the woods allows me to sense a feeling of belonging, a strong connection to the Earth.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY-
Monique Allain is an artist, educator and researcher, born in São Paulo in 1958. She completed a Bachelor degree in Physical and Biological Sciences in 1980 and postgraduate work in Genetics at University of São Paulo in 1983. Before engaging in the art field, she was an environmental consultant for the “Terra Capital Fund”, the first fund in the world to capitalize on business projects aimed at preserving biodiversity. From 2000 until 2002 Allain worked as Assistant Cultural Manager at Casa das Rosas, a contemporary public art center in Brazil. Along with a group of artists, sharing the desire to accentuate the participation of visual artists in the processes of cultural decisions, and expansion of the recognition and diffusion of visual art developed in Brazil, she created the Cooperativa de Artistas Visuais do Brasil (2003). In 2004, with the view to deepen and structure knowledge in the art field, and to maturate a personal language, Allain went back to university to study Visual Arts. In 2005 and 2006 she joined the artists Dácio Bicudo and Ivald Granato to create the “CEL1121”, a space for artistic actions. After completing a Bachelor degree in Visual Arts from FAAP (2007), she was awarded an art residence permit by FAAP at the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, 2008). In 2011 she received a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from FASM-SP. Interested in improving her creative process, Allain followed the Moshe Feldenkrais training method, and was certified by the International Feldenkrais Foundation (2012-2015). Invited by ABER (Associação Brasileira de Encadernação e Restauro) to create and coordinate the art division “NÚCLEO DE ARTE”, in 2013 she developed multiple programs which promoted the study and production of artist's books, as a study group for artists, an Artist Book course, and the Vitrine Project. The experience expanded her interest in printed art, and enabled rich exchanges with other artists. These programs allowed the practice and the maturation of a pedagogical project that involved conception, construction, and presentation of artworks. In the Vitrine Project, four annual exhibitions of printed art showcased the work of consolidated artists (2013-2019). In 2017, Allain applied, was selected and participated in the Program and Group of Contemporary Art and Production Studies led by Paulo Miyada and Pedro França at the Tomie Ohtake Institute, with focus on the deconstruction of certainties, experimentation and deepening of the creative processes. Allainmoved to Brooklyn in 2018 and to North Salem in 2020. Monique Allain’s most significant one-person exhibitions include Fluxos (2003) in Espaço Cultural dos Correios Rio de Janeiro, Art Babel (2009) in Cité Internationale des Arts, Horizontes (2013) curated by TOM van VLIET in Lourdina Jean Rabieh Gallery, and México Imaginário: um Livro Aberto (2016) in Hemeroteca da Biblioteca Mário de Andrade. Allain participated in several collective prestigious museum exhibitions as México Imaginário (2002) in Casa das Rosas, Olhar Impertinente (2004) in Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Contrapontos (2012) in Museu de Arte Sacra de São Paulo, and Elas: Mulheres Artistas no Acervo do MAB (2016) in Museu de Arte Brasileira (MAB). Allain’s work was selected for several international exhibitions including Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney, 1st Latin American Maimeri Award in Buenos Aires, Contemporary Art 2000 at Espace Auteuil in Paris, Puls Art at Cité des Arts in Le Mans, Ars Latina at Museo Internazionale Dinâmico Di Arte Contemporanea in Belforte del Chienti, Italy. Monique Allain’s work is included in the permanent collections of the following prestigious institutions: MAB, Espaço Cultural dos Correios, Palácio 9 de Julho, and Benetton Foundation.
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Instagram-
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