On those days when you miss someone the most, as though your memories are sharp enough to slice through skin and bone, remember how they loved you.
Remember how they loved you and do that, for yourself.
In their name, in their honour.
Love yourself as they loved you. They would like that.
On those days when you miss someone the most, Love yourself harder.
Donna Ashworth (Scottish poet)
Thinking Again
Graphite on paper A3 Sketchbook page
Early works 1991 – 1996
Monique studied at Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR, now UJ) for five years, obtaining her National Diploma (Fine Arts) and Higher Diploma (Fine Arts).
140 x 46 cm
Her fascination with the female nude as subject matter began at TWR – maybe because it was a favourite topic for the drawing lecturer at the time …
But even here, the women she drew were anonymous, their faces blurred or obscured due to the position she chose to portray them in, or completely cropped out of the format. Why? No doubt, for Monique, one reason could have been to preserve their dignity. This non-confrontation with the faces of her women (or human subjects) continued throughout her artmaking life.
Circa early 1990s _ Student work
70 x 50 cm
Circa early 1990s _ Student work
70 x 50 cm
50 x 70 cm
early 1990s _ student work
59 x 42 cm
Untitled (Nude on chair)
Circa early 1990s _ student work
Charcoal on paper
59 x 42 cm
Untitled (Nude under table)
Circa early 1990s _ student work
on paper
59 x 42 cm
59 x 42 cm
Untitled (Figure on bench)
Circa early 1990s _ student work
Charcoal on paper
59 x 42 cm
59 x 42 cm
Prints
The Gift
Unknown date
Monotype and graphite
39 x 40 cm
the Caversham Press
Edition of 12
Paper size 50 x 35 cm
Early 2000s
Monique began to combine text with female body imagery.
I remember her drawing the two bound arms at my studio – in fact, I reluctantly tied her arms excessively tightly with string and photographed them for her, so that she had source material for the artworks …
I was always transfixed at how she drew – slowly, without haste, carefully considering each mark she made – and yet producing work that was neither stiff nor illustrative, but completely mesmerising.
(Bound arm and text I)
50 x 70 cm
Untitled (Bound arm and text II)
Circa early 2000s
Charcoal and collage on paper
70 x 50 cm
Untitled (Intimate listening)
Circa early 2000s
Acrylic paint and charcoal on paper
76 x 56 cm
2005 – Forcefield, her participation in a 4-woman exhibition at the original Gordart Gallery in Melville, Johannesburg
Monique used this opportunity to explore a subject she had developed an interest in –how ideas around shadow and light within intimate relationships often reveal social expectations and hidden agendas.
2007 The Belgium paintings
After she and Manie married, they relocated to Belgium for a while. Although she had been initially excited at the prospect of adventure, she began to long for home and her people. These four paintings were created during this 9-month stay there, and helped her deal with homesickness.
The seven deadly sins series
These works took several years to conceive and create, starting in the early 2010s. She chose not to title the individual works, believing that one sin could easily warp into any of the others. As well as highlighting her incomparable drawing skill, these seven works also show her instinctive understanding of how composition and tension interrelate. They were exhibited at the Johannesburg Turbine Art Fair 2017 (TAF17) under the umbrella of outoftheCUBE. For more info, see Monique’s dedicated seven deadly sins catalogue here
2019 to 2020
Monique returned to drawing again after a long hiatus during which she was teaching and studying.
Starting in 2019, she began to look at traditional subject matter, producing first the cactus, and then the arum lilies, and the shell.
Untitled (Shell and text)
2020
Charcoal and pastel on paper
Circular format 19 cm diameter
2020 to 2023 _ during Covid
When the Covid lockdown began, she made the feather and heads drawing for a specific project – for her, the feather had always been a symbol for the ephemeral, and her use of white pastel on black for the heads looking away from us create a sense of other-worldliness.
This was followed by the two tondo drawings, one of a crumpled surgical mask and one of a slightly overblown rose, both subjects which also speak of transience and vulnerability.
Untitled (Feather head _ created for an outoftheCUBE Covid project)
2020
White pastel on black paper
27 x 27 cm
Circular format 19 cm diameter
Circular format 19 cm diameter
Alongside her response to the Covid pandemic, Monique continued to work with her concerns around the female body.
Remarkable is how - despite the time elapsed, the difference in scale of the works, her development of a more sophisticated technique, and the serious underlying concept of the later works - these echo those of her student days.
Student work
Circular format 14 cm diameter
Student work
Thinking Again
23,5 x 15 cm
Hurt people hurt people
2023 drawings
Finally post-Covid and weary of angst, she wanted to explore the beautiful.
As a starting point, she made some drawings inspired by images of x-rayed flowers that she found online.
Having not worked with colour for almost 15 years, these black and white flowers
led to her last drawings: the beautiful pink Lilly tondo, and the sumptuous Protea and Fish/Bowl on a vivid blue.
Circular format 27,5 cm diameter
created by Mandy Conidaris #an_uncomplicatedcurator