Alyssa Monks | Clio Newton
January 18 - March 9, 2024
Alyssa Monks | Clio Newton
Forum Gallery presents a two-person exhibition of new and bold figurative works by Alyssa Monks (b. 1977) and Clio Newton (b. 1989) opening Thursday, January 18, 2024, and continuing through Saturday, March 9, 2024. The two women are among today’s most influential, internationally-recognized artists. While each has a unique approach to her art, both artists employ formidable technique to portray a thoroughly contemporary sensibility.
Clio Newton
I Know The Stars, 2023
compressed charcoal on Coventry Rag paper
50 x 38 inches
SOLD
Alyssa Monks in the studio.
My new paintings in this exhibition confront the human experience of longing for that which is beyond our reach. Unbridled human vulnerability arises from the helpless awareness of being unable to control so much of what we try to. Flowers, branches, water droplets, and vapor - painted carefully in harmonizing color - speak to the ideals of femininity and beauty but also distort and overwhelm the portraits creating an elusive expression that is impossible to see fully and interpret.
_Alyssa Monks
We are left knitting bits of delicate illusionistic form together to catch a glimpse of these women, ensconced in their distancing efforts to control what you see, but also begging to be seen. We are in an endless loop, and only find ourselves in the end, also trying to make sense of a senseless experience, realizing that it is ultimately a futile pursuit. My aim is to inspire viewers to let go before they must let go in order to fully experience the surprisingly beautiful unpredictability of life.
_Alyssa Monks
Clio Newton in the studio.
This new work is a lot about desire. I look for moments of intimacy, peering over a shoulder, returning a locked gaze, where complex desire lives. The challenge is finding something real, in an expression or a gesture, that is completely specific to that individual or moment, but in its authenticity connects to something universally human.
_Clio Newton
Bodies are fascinating. Fragile and fleshy, intelligent, mysterious, frustrating, scary and magnetic. Beauty has no morality, which is why I’m suspicious of it. It beguiles and pulls you, but evades and breaks its promises.
_Clio Newton
Alyssa Monks, Warrior (detail), 2019, oil on linen, 62 x 90 inches
Clio Newton, All That's Borrowed (detail), 2023, color pencil on Coventry Rag paper, 50 x 38 inches