Sun-Atsuko, 2023

Monika Nowak   Emerging artists

Monika Nowak's pop art masterpieces are creative and imaginative explosions - intuitive, vibrant, and unique.

While her characters have the characteristics of typical pop culture heroes, such as being attractive, provocative, forceful, amusing, or stylish, they are also the product of her own vision, with conflicting characteristics such as fragility, sweetness, and lyricism. Because of their 'comic strip' origins, they are linked to our childhood memories, giving an added layer of nostalgia to make these pieces pop art at its most effective.

Monika's work takes place in a magical narrative universe brimming with interesting colors, homage, and motifs. She nearly exaggerates the femininity of the people she represents, leaving us wondering what it means to be a woman in the modern society. Each sculpture is both a social critique and an affirmation of the artist's intense desire to impose her personality on what she calls a "chaotic, saturated, and obsessive world."

Monika discusses her first ideas for a painting or series with a fashion photographer and cosmetics artist before selecting a model and scheduling a picture session. She then positions the shoot in accordance with her intentions, but this is only the start of the creative process. The session serves as a starting point since her ideas begin to alter and take flight as it is taking place. She uses photographs as source material, blending pieces from many images, emphasizing certain characteristics while maintaining a sense of overall realism. In this approach, she constructs what she refers to as a "feminine idea."