Monika Wright Exhibiting at Toronto Artist Project 2015
Monika Wright is excited to be one of 250 top contemporary artists from across Canada and abroad, exhibiting in the 2015 Toronto Artist Project. This is a unique opportunity to meet and buy art directly from artists at Toronto’s most celebrated contemporary art fair.
The Artist Project celebrates its 8th year with another exciting show from February 19 to 22, 2015 at the Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Canada.
“This is a pretty big deal”, says Wright. “To be invited to participate in one of the biggest art fairs in Canada gives me an opportunity to expose my art to over 15,000 new viewers of my work.” She’s looking forward to opening new doors and meeting new collectors and connecting with more galleries.
Having moved to Halifax from Toronto in 2005, Monika exchanged a frantic and successful real estate career for a much quieter life in Nova Scotia, a province burgeoning with artistic talent. She rediscovered her lifelong passion for photography, and then for painting when she became involved with ViewPoint Gallery, a contemporary photography gallery, and with ArtSpa, a group of painters who were incredibly instrumental in her development as an artist. With the support of these two groups, Monika found peace after tragedy and discovered a passion that burns brightly now in the art works she creates.
Her expressive canvases have evolved to show the dynamic elements of color nuance, of magical light that glows amidst the darkness, of brushstrokes that are both wild and gentle, conveying movement and mindfulness. There is both tension and resolution in her paintings. They draw the viewer into the painting, inviting them to engage in the experience of her art. Yes, it is an experience, because she asks you to get involved, to interact with the work. Turn it around and see it from another perspective; because as we change our perspectives, so too, can we change the world for the better.
Even as a child, Monika turned to art, photography and writing as an outlet for her emotions. With creative parents who encouraged expression and independence, she was allowed to draw on (one) wall in her bedroom. She wrote stories and poems and travelled the world with her camera building upon an awareness of her surroundings and noticing the details that create the whole of life. These fascinated her, grounded her, and then sent her flying through her imagination.
Like most artists, Monika’s early work was representational, focused on portraits and still life paintings and sketches that were highly realistic. Although she admired abstraction, she found it difficult to achieve. Then the dam broke and her distinctive style emerged. She started experimenting with mixed media, which freed her from realism. Her movements became broader; her colors bolder. Her paintings have been described as ‘lyrical’ and ‘fluid’.
“Creating allows me to communicate with people on a subliminal level, evoking visceral, emotional reactions that open the heart and mind of the viewer. Incorporating universal symbols such as circles and lines – circles being emblems of unity, wholeness and infinity, and lines representing boundaries that separate us, but also connect us – these elements in my art reveal the possibility of reframing our experience of life, casting off the man made dogmas in exchange for the beauty and compassion that unites us.”
“I believe that art has the power to be transformative, to rearrange our vision of the world: territorial, geographic, religious and economic. We are all part of one puzzle, divisible only by our own thoughts and actions. In a world obsessed with darkness, I want to introduce light, hope and joy. What we choose to see and believe will determine how we live, not just where we live.”
Monika is inspired by her physical world in the coastal city of Halifax, Nova Scotia as well as in her travels around the globe, but it is the interior world she has learned to release onto the canvas. After the passing of her partner in life, she found community in the art world and learned to transform powerful emotions into her joyful works of art.
Monika’s work is included in private and corporate collections in Canada, USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain and Germany. Her hope is to continue growing her collector base, exhibiting world-wide in galleries and public venues and most of all to INSPIRE courage and compassion through the bonding experience that art can create among people of all nations and cultures.
To see a selection of Monika Wright’s artwork, visit her website at www.monikawright.com . She also posts on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MonikaWrightArtist .
Gallery: 25 Waterbury Lane, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3Z0E8, Canada