ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice emerges from a fundamental belief in transformation—the power to reveal extraordinary beauty and meaning in the seemingly ordinary. Growing up in southwest Missouri, I inhabited a world of subtle beauty that often went unnoticed until a pivotal trip to Japan awakened my artistic consciousness. This journey taught me to see both urban and natural landscapes as vessels of artistic possibility, forever changing my
relationship with my environment and establishing the foundation for my work across multiple mediums.
The evolution of my practice mirrors my personal journey of discovering beauty in unexpected places. My early work in digital photography focused on common flowers, using macro photography to reveal intricate details often missed by the casual observer. While these images garnered appreciation for their straightforward beauty, I soon began exploring digital manipulation techniques to transform these familiar blooms into otherworldly forms. The extensive color palette offered by photo software allowed me to push beyond mere representation, unveiling hidden dimensions and challenging viewers to see these everyday subjects anew. The intricate patterns and unexpected relationships discovered through this digital experimentation eventually found their way into my oil pastel paintings, creating a dialogue between digital and traditional mediums. The transition from natural vision to digital manipulation was as transformative as traveling from my familiar hometown to the exotic gardens of Japan.
Martha Stewart’s philosophy of creative reuse resonated deeply with my artistic vision, inspiring my exploration of overlooked materials and leading to the development of my Sheet Art Series. In this body of work, I breathe new life into vintage bed linens by stretching the featured patterns across canvas and enhancing them with acrylic paint. These pieces serve multiple purposes: celebrating overlooked commercial designs, offering a subtle critique of consumer culture, and acknowledging the anonymous artists behind mass-produced patterns. Like my digital flower series, this work reveals beauty in the discarded and forgotten, particularly in designs that society has deemed passé.
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a significant turning point in my practice, pushing me to confront grief and remembrance through art. In the midst of this global chaos, I found an unexpected source of solace in my collection of fashion catalogs and lifestyle magazines. The glossy pages, filled with merchandise and promises of normalcy through consumption, provided a stark counterpoint to the unfolding tragedy. Inspired by the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima, where paper cranes memorialize young victims of atomic warfare, I began cutting 2” x 2” paper hearts from these magazines. What started as an intuitive response to crisis evolved into a powerful form of remembrance, transforming symbols of consumerism into tokens of grief and healing.
This practice culminated in the Hearts Project, a multi-dimensional memorial that honors the 13,068 lives lost to COVID in Arkansas. The project consists of carefully arranged hearts within custom-designed frames, organized into thematic sections that address different aspects of the pandemic's impact. The Purple Hearts section pays tribute to healthcare professionals who risked their lives in service to others. Our Frontline Workers acknowledges essential workers and their disproportionate risk, particularly in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. A Spiritual Crossing provides a meditative space for individual and communal mourning. By repurposing materials once dedicated to consumption, this project challenges our societal tendency to shop away our grief while creating a space for meaningful reflection and remembrance.
Throughout my practice, I remain committed to exploring the boundaries between ordinary and extraordinary, using various techniques—digital manipulation, fabric repurposing, and paper transformation—to encourage viewers to reconsider their relationship with the world around them. My work consistently offers thoughtful critiques of consumer culture while celebrating art’s capacity to honor, remember, and heal. As a digital, textile, and mixed-media artist, I transform commonplace materials and subjects
into profound new narratives that speak to both personal and collective experiences.
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Looking forward, I aim to continue pushing the boundaries of my practice while maintaining my core principle of finding the extraordinary within the ordinary. Through my work, I create spaces for reflection and transformation, inviting viewers to pause and reconsider the overlooked beauty and meaning in their own surroundings. Whether working in digital media, textiles, or mixed materials, my goal remains consistent: to reveal the profound possibilities hidden within the everyday world around us.
Monica Moore is an artist who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her loving husband and kitty cat.