Many of the works featured in Nancy Monk’s exhibition “Walk + Wood” at Craig Krull Gallery are of small scale and draw from a restrained palette. Looking at the works, the viewer sees things that, at first glance, appear whimsical and childlike. However, on closer examination, it is clear that these works are also precisely composed and highly stylized. This duality is a trick Monk is able to pull off with panache. It is this double take—this shift between a first and second look—that makes the work live outside of what it seems to sometimes look like, and which can turn it into something entirely unexpected.

For example, water walker (2022) is, superficially, a collection of recognizable shapes and lines. Yet, the balance between these simple and reference-able entities implies the compositional control typical of abstraction. The brinksmanship with which Monk operates is without self-consciousness or any sense of the ironic. It is taking very elementary quanta of forms from the world around us and juggling them into an appropriate and extremely satisfying order. Occasionally, one or another piece leans into the comical, but that usually depends on the viewer’s predisposition and not on the work itself. Perceptually, the work is extremely clarified and sifted so a multitude of semantic halos can show up in one’s perception without them being willfully projected by the work. It’s kind of do-it-yourself oversimplification.

Nancy Monk, walk + fly, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Craig Krull Gallery

Monk’s works are placed on the wall in eccentric patterns—some groupings hung higher, while others are lower or gathered in clusters. The arrangement induces the viewer to form conversations with and between the works even if they are derived from different motifs or even different time frames. One wall is firmly anchored by the low placement of tree walker (2004-2022). Above the piece and to the left are two recent works, vacation tree (2023) and seed walker (2022) which, jutting out from tree walker, create constellations that mirror maps or spores. It is the molecular accretion of dashes and or dots and or points that the artist wields conscientiously to build up difference and affinities.

Monk’s work carries vestiges gleaned from flowers, trees, clouds, houses and other everyday sights, that are deftly reworked on often minute formats to create a universe that is still yet engaging. Emblematic of her practice is curb walker (2021), which, with a light gray backdrop and superimposed fabric swatches that form a delicate cross hatch, alludes to how Monk spans the severity of geometry and expanse of reverie.