MONIKA LARSEN DENNIS • FRIDA OLIV
Dunham Family Gallery | March 14 - April 27, 2025
IMPEDIMENTS AND BYWAYS TO LOVE ON THE ROAD TO ETERNITY
We must understand our past to know who we are. Our past shapes how we think about who we can become. Our minds blend our ideas about the past, the present, and the future to create coherent versions of ourselves. Rituals reinforce values that stabilize our identity despite changes in time and space.
We must think of Monika Larsen Dennis and Frida Oliv as shamans, and of their bodies of work as self-transforming tools to help us remove obstacles that keep us from loving ourselves and each other more fully.
Monika’s art is deeply concerned with how people treat each other in matters of the heart. She believes in the plasticity of the mind and its capacity for change. In her work, she turns and twists our dreams, fears, and difficulties to help us better navigate life and pursue happiness. Her work suggests that we open up and question those aspects of ourselves that we consider unspeakable, even taboo. Doing this could be a magical experience: releasing our senseless fears to better project love into ourselves and others.
Frida’s paintings are highly suggestive with regard to disrupting coherent versions of ourselves. In making them, she disrupts the connections that we usually find between plants, animals, and their environments. The result is a symbolic landscape where new connections are not only possible, but actual. Here, fantasy and reality are one, seamlessly, without beginning or end. While looking at her paintings, the viewer, by analogy, may begin to imagine how to release their senseless fears, and how to begin creating new connections that nurture ever more loving versions of themselves. Sorrow, death, love, and life meet here in a cycle, endlessly.
Together, Monika Larsen Dennis and Frida Oliv invite us to create more loving versions of ourselves and they remind us that we can make this choice now. This is a continuous process because our identity is always in flux. This should be good news for those of us who need to identify impediments and find byways to love on the road to eternity.
Haroldo Fontaine, Ph.D.
Lower right: Monika Larsen Dennis, Honey (detail), C-print under glass, triptych, each circle 14”
Top left: Monika Larsen Dennis, Palm, C-print under glass, circle 17¾”
Top right: Monika Larsen Dennis, Unicorn, Marble, black granite, wood podium, carriage blanket, H22” W31” D31”
Lower left: Monika Larsen Dennis, Rose, Porcelain, H2 ½” W15” D15”
Monika Larsen Dennis, Restare - To Stay, To Rest, To Remain, veteran memorial in Djurgården, Stockholm, Sweden. Marble, stainless steel, concrete, 9’ high, 56’ long, 30’ wide, 47 tons.
BIO AND ARTIST STATEMENT
Monika Larsen Dennis was born in 1963 in Malmö, Sweden, and was educated at the Icelandic College of Art (BFA 1994) and at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden (MFA 1997). Central to her whole production is the duality of human relationships where the pendulum swings between trust and suspicion, affection and aggression, and longing for freedom and captivity. She has exhibited in galleries and museums in Sweden and abroad (e.g., the Modern Museum in Stockholm, the Brooklyn Museum in NYC). From 2005 until 2013, Monika worked as a Project Manager at the Swedish Arts Council. In 2013, she won a competition to make a national Veteran Memorial in Stockholm: Restare - To Stay, To Rest, To Remain. It is a 47-ton permanent installation and the setting for the annual Veterans Day celebration on May 29. In 2015, she won a competition to create Emotional Trails. It is a half-mile long permanent installation for the Hammarby Kanal Subway Station in Stockholm (opening 2030). Throughout her career, she has made several other public works in Sweden and Denmark, and she has won several awards and grants. Monika works and lives in Fort Myers, Florida and Malmö, Sweden. For more information, please visit monikalarsendennis.com
BIO AND ARTIST STATEMENT
Frida Oliv was born in 1974 in Grangärde, Sweden, and was educated at the Institute of Art in Umeå, Sweden (1998-2003 BFA, MFA). Her paintings are fairy tales where everything can meet and anything can happen, where the viewer may find their own story. She is interested in the connection between all things and our minds. Frida’s paintings have been exhibited in galleries in Sweden and she has made numerous public art pieces. Her first public art piece was Evolution (2010) at Lund University’s Department of Biology with funding from the Swedish Arts Council where Monika worked. Researching the most interesting nature painter in Sweden, Monika found that all leads led to Frida. In 2012, she made Terra for the Hammarkullen tram stop in Gothenburg, and Ave Nature for the emergency room at Sundsvall Regional Hospital. From 2022-24, she made Snorkeling the Lucid Sea for the psychiatric ward at Linköping University Hospital. In 2022, she produced Elysion for the Umeå University Hospital, and Everything’s Beginning for Örebro University Hospital in 2024. She lives and works in Värmdö in the Stockholm Archipelago. For more information, please visit fridaoliv.com
Frida Oliv, Terra, Hammarkullen tram stop in Gothenburg, Sweden, 7’ high, 66’ wide
Frida Oliv, Snorkeling the Lucid Sea, Oil on wood, H20” W29” D½”
Frida Oliv, The Host Animal, Oil on wood, H14” W14” D½”
Frida Oliv, The Eternal Flame of Life, Oil on wood, H14” W14” D½”
Frida Oliv, Lovebirds, Oil on wood, H14” W14” D½”
Great communities create great organizations – not the other way around. In 1979, BIG ARTS was created by, and for, the community and owes its rich history to a small band of dedicated artists who drew inspiration from each other and from the breathtaking island beauty that infused their work with grace and authenticity. They set out to create a special gathering place where artistic and educational experiences were accessible to all. Today that vision is alive and well. With the help of our loyal donors and supporters, BIG ARTS will carry that vision forward – providing joy, inspiration and a sense of community for generations to come.
VISION
To create great arts, entertainment and learning experiences that always inspire, enrich and delight.
MISSION
Provide an array of quality entertainment, arts and education programs that enrich and nurture the lives of Sanibel and Captiva residents and visitors through:
• professionally led arts and enrichment classes and workshops for students of all ages
• stimulating and informative lectures and group discussions with renowned national thought leaders and educators
• dynamic visual and performing arts presentations of the highest caliber.