Monika Crowley

Monika Crowley is a first class honours graduate in Visual Communication from the National College of Art and Design and 10 years of experience in design and advertising studios have informed a bold graphic style that translates well to the medium of screen printing. Each project begins with a series of photographs as source material, these are deconstructed, then reformed and distilled into visuals in a striking but constrained palette. She has taken part in several exhibitions to date including Art Sells Exhibition, Shoreditch London and with the Limerick Printmakers Studio and Gallery.

 

This series deals with motherhood, rite of passage and advice passed from mother to daughter. They serve as a 'memoir-cum-warning about current nostalgia for retro culture and a time when mothers were not expected to juggle jobs and families.

 

Many women who work long hours out of financial need yearn for more time at home and distance has lent enchantment to the traditional structure of the home where the man goes out to work and the women is home-maker. But for every working mother now who fantasises about giving up work there was surely a 'captive wife' then, trapped and frustrated by full-time domesticity.

 

These images deal with hopes and aspirations, as well as fear and loss and the anticipation of change. A Mothers letter, the empty bowl, the old babyfood tin that holds baking soda and the closed box of eggs with one missing. They contain memories from the artist's own childhood and evoke the constant and creational nature of baking but hint at the unrelenting demands of providing for a family.

The prints are 'cheerful' bright and graphic - drawing on a background in graphic design and advertising, but the backdrops are grey and sterile and each piece is quite still with a sense of waiting.