Monika Crowley has long been fascinated with domesticity, the traditional structure of the home and the changing expectations of modern motherhood. Her practice uses mundane objects in a symbolic, transformative manner and is a commentary on ‘worth’, and the value placed by society on the labours of both ‘Artist’ and ‘Mother’. A current body of work explores the comedy and absurdity in the repetition of life and especially everyday chores. Simone De Beauvoir said “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework”. While, Albert Camus argues that the absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life and the “unreasonable silence” of the universe in response. Her work lines somewhere in his conclusion, that happiness is about continuing to live one’s life while being aware of its absurdity.
Biog
In 2021, Crowley exhibited at the Belfast International Arts Festival as part of HOST, an exhibition exchange that she co-organised at the Dean Arts Studio Exhibition space on Harcourt Street and at the Vaults Arts Studios in Belfast. She was also part of Artform Summer show in Dunmore East 2021. Her work has been selected for the RHA 192nd and 188th Annual Summer Exhibitions in Dublin. She has had two solo shows at the Molesworth Gallery and is a member of Graphic Print Studio. Her pieces are held in many private collections, nationally and internationally, and in the public collections of the OPW, the Contemporary Irish Arts Society and her work from Meat & Potatoes show at the Crawford Gallery has been acquired for the National Collection. She has been awarded Arts Council Funding in 2020, 2021 and 2022. As part of her work exploring parenthood, she is a member of Spiltmilk Collective in Edinburgh and worked with The Mothership project on the Care & Creativity symposium in conjunction with NCAD and the Hugh Lane. She is the Visual Arts Director of Ranelagh Arts. In 2022, as well as the RHA 192nd Summer Exhibition, she exhibited in Ulysses Imagined at The Graphic Print Gallery and Meat & Potatoes at the Crawford Gallery, Cork. SINK – a solo show at Ranelagh Arts was a showcase of expanded print and painting.
You can contact me directly, through the Molesworth Gallery, or the Graphic Print Gallery for further information on the work. For details, images, sizes, prices or availability of pieces, I would be delighted to hear from you.
gallery@graphicstudiodublin.com
Monika Crowley Artist 