MONICA CANILAO
EXHIBITION: MONICA CANILAO@836M
DATES: 12/2/2018 - 05/16/2019
COLLECTIONS: EPHEMERAL
CURRENTLY BASED: OAKLAND, CA
INSTAGRAM: @__moreferalthan__
ARTIST WEBSITE: monicacanilao.com
Bio
Living in the heart of Oakland, Monica spends her days stitching, painting, printing, and building, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates her surroundings. Moving across different media, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone, Monica creates a delicate visual record of her personal and communal space.
She received a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Her work has been shown both internationally and nationally: at The Luggage Store Gallery (San Francisco), Inner State Gallery (Michigan), Chandran Gallery (SF), Black Rat Press (London), Subliminal Projects (LA), and at KRETS (Sweden). She has also done large-scale public art installations at Miami Art Basel. Her work has been displayed in community spaces and in abandoned places worldwide.
My community and collaborators, my descendants and their all but lost traditions, as well as my neighborhood and its trash piles, are all integral to my life and art. My pieces incorporate my worldview and the beauty found in what people have left behind over time and its subsequent decay. I rely as much on the loving and careful meticulousness employed in making handicrafts as on high art techniques. Taking something as ordinary as wood pulp or cloth and passing thread through it can result in an object that is beautiful and useful.
“Art for me is about making living sacred.”—MONICA CANILAO