Tag: Monica Wyatt

Monica Wyatt’s “c u r i o u s e r – Assemblage Creations from Wonderland” is a magical mystery tour of immersive experience. Wyatt offers work that is, at turns, whimsical, wild, and ephemeral. Created of repurposed materials, her detailed, intricate work floats and gleams, incandescent, dazzling sculptures created in large part during the pandemic, and transcending any sense of confinement.

Some works resemble otherworldly plant life, most obviously with her 2021 work, including Cactus on Mars, a spiky beauty made of cable ties, wire, and enamel paint; Fall Silent a flowing vine of wire, glass vials, ceramic electrical components, and cork springs; as well as in the dangling ropy wires and incandescent pods of Years Come to My Eyes #1. Her hive-like Years Come to my Eyes #3, sparkles with shiny steel sewing machine bobbins and blooms with multi-colored wire and buttons. The Velvet Moss of Caterpillars uses salvaged wood as its fallen-log-like base for electronic capacitors and connectors seemingly slithering against an intricately and deceptively soft-appearing surface. The titular Curiouser resembles a vase of strange pod flowers, their centers rubbery floor protectors while glass lenses and acrylic baubles shine, forgotten jewels on the circular What You Left Behind (2019).

When Shadows Chase the Light (2018) is a sparkling, bubbly suspension of 5000 acrylic globes, high-bay lenses, and 24,000 white nylon hairnets, alight with LED, vast and dream-like. Hexagonal patterns fascinate in 2020’s A Cosmic Blink, and The Far Side of a Cloud (POR). 2016’s Anatomy of a Cloud bursts from the wall, a mix of African beads and organ parts.

Also working in jubilantly repurposed materials is artist and gallerist Clare Graham, whose work dovetails seamlessly with Wyatt’s, both artists creating luminous, transformed, transformative art. Graham’s vast collection includes delicately elaborate bead chandeliers, an aluminum pull-tab-covered bench and chair, and delightfully openable tiled cabinets and hutches, with varied interiors containing mirrors, a holographic image, graceful scallops of metal wires, or collections of crystal balls, old books, and a safety-pin sculpture.

MorYork is located at 4959 York Blvd., Highland Park. Through May 7^th; 2-5 T-Th; 12-4 Saturday.

Photos by Genie Davis.