Client

Overview



The installation composed of vertical monitors painted walls, and plexiglass, wood, and other elements, in the form of a mosaic of ideas, shows the gathering and editing of images. Through stitching, weaving, and compositing, using color to create a material contrast, a physical experience grounded in the circular duration of time in the piece. 




Throughout her new installation, in the form of a mosaic of ideas, Bravo shows the gathering and editing of images through stitching, weaving, and compositing. Bravo also uses color to create a material contrast, a physical experience grounded in the circular duration of time in the piece. In the center of five monitors, three projectors, and sound, the viewer undergoes a hyper-rhythmic sensorial stimulation. In this activated state, on the one hand, Bravo is superimposing layers on LCD screens to help us enter into a new cognizance, where perception is mediated between what is real and what is virtual. On the other hand, another set of projections will be countering that experience: bursts of patterns of tiles, masked with Google image captures of Earth, will pulsate around the room as the silent beat of an imaginary musical score.

Goals

Recently granted a commission by the MTA Arts & Design, Bravo has also begun to work with mosaics. After working many years with animations, projections, and installations, Bravo is now oscillating between ancient and contemporary technologies, between the eternal image on a wall and the fleeting projection on the screen, where a conversation of particles emerges between tesserae and pixels. Bravo is thus rewriting a new code between the two languages of weaving and mosaic-making, a code that connects together the elements of perception, illusion, time, technology, and the universal.

This itinerant project has been shown as an Exhibition at Johannes Vogt NYC, Saro Leon, Canary Islands, and Flora Ars Natura, Bogota. 
Curated by Octavio Zaya, the moving images are the foundation for MTA Arts and Design subway station in Brooklyn.

Process

Arising from her ongoing research on color and rhythm, Monika Bravo’s new works place us in an abyss pulsing with vibrating waves of energy, where readability and meaning remain elusive. After Bergson’s understanding of time and his concept of duration --which differentiates between the time that we measure in intervals and the time of our experience--Bravo aims for an interconnected sense of unity between space and time through an understanding of our mind´s cognitive structure, which gives to formless reality both shape and meaning. Thus, the visual layers and cycles that dwell between those states of abstraction and their corresponding materiality are what Bravo´s work reveals to us and what we are supposed to experience through it. For Bravo, the skin --our skin-- is what translates these sensorial forms. For her, the body is the site where form and content develop an exchange, a dialogue, and where a balance between them is struck. Following this conceptual frame, the one who knows and understands the surface is the one who can experience the depths and the void. As Paul Valéry used to say, “the skin is the deepest thing there is.” Octavio Zaya

Additional Information

MONIKA BRAVO
 I am a multi-disciplinary artist born in Bogotá, Colombia. I studied fashion design in Rome & Paris and photography in London and NYC. I moved to Miami Beach, during 2020. I embody my own perspective and no longer seek “truth”; my vision is a synthesis of all disciplines, guiding me to manifest a reality that matches my desire to evolve. I create mesmerizing environments for public spaces, intimate interpersonal interactions through astrological readings, and meaningful spaces for individual and communal development through talks and workshops. I enjoy directing and producing diverse projects, from complex multi-media installations and public art commissions to artists’ books, textile design, and community workshops – thus, I see no boundaries between the applied and fine arts. I thrive in situations where I am working with limitations and constraints, creating opportunities for innovative projects that serve communities for years to come. I enjoy challenging myself with new technologies and materials, and discovering new ways of manifesting my ideas to fit the needs of the location.