Monica d. Church is a multi media artist working in installation, painting, and photo-based printmaking. She studied printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design and Bennington College where she received a B.A. in Visual Arts (1987). She went on to earn an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Kentucky (1993). She has won numerous awards and fellowships for her work, including the 2006-07 Dutchess County Art’s Council Individual Artist Fellowship for Digital Photography; The 2005 Steven Madwed Memorial Prize for Photography or Digital Art from the Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, Connecticut; The 2004 Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Best in Show Award also at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center; a Carolyn Grant from Vassar College; the 2002 Dutchess County Art's Council Individual Artist Fellowship for Painting; and a fellowship for a six-week residency at the Woman’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.

For the past two decades, Church has exhibited her work throughout the Americas, including solo exhibitions at the Palmer Gallery at Vassar College; Go North – A Space for Contemporary Art in Beacon, New York; the Chapman Friedman Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky; the LoRiver Arts Gallery in Beacon, New York; Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York; the Prism Gallery in Port Jefferson, New York; the Beside Myself Gallery in Arlington, Vermont; and the Garrison Art Center in Garrison, New York.

Recently, her etchings were selected by curator Robert Storr, commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennial, for inclusion in the RISD Biennial NYC 2006 at Exit Art in New York City. In 2006-07, Church’s work was included in Four Points of View: Figuration in Printmaking at La Galleria Nacional del Centro Costarricense de Ciencia y Cultura in San Jose, Costa Rica. In addition, Church’s etchings have been part of group shows at Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Miami, and other venues across the United States including Alaska.

Her other recent group exhibits have featured all relevant media and include: Indwelling: living in a female body, The Cooper Union, NY, NY (2007); Generations 5, A.I.R. Gallery,  NY, NY (2006); Photoaustin VI: lens based works by women photographers, IDEA, Austin, Texas (2005); the 8th International Open, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago (2005); the 56th Art of the Northeast USA, Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, Connecticut (2005); The Way to my Heart: A Valentine’s Erotic Obsessions, Spire Studios, Beacon, New York (2005); Bulletproof II, Spire Studios, Beacon, New York (2005);  the 55th Art of the Northeast USA, Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, Connecticut (2004); Sirens: an installation by Kyung Sook Schoenman & Monica Church, LoRiver Arts, Beacon, New York (2004);  the 9th Annual Great Plains National, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas (2003); Art Bound, Chapman Friedman Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky (2003); Less is More, Chapman Friedman Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky (2002); Natural Selections, Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington, Kentucky (2002); and Recent Work: Marist College Art Faculty, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York (2002).

artist's statement

The ideas for the work in Fly Away Little Bird began to formulate while I was reading the Week in Review section of the New York Times. Greetings Kill: Primer for a Pandemic, by Donald G. McNeil Jr., muses about how Americans must learn to “rewrite the way we interact.” My husband and I have been traveling to Asia since 1989. With the SARS outbreak in Hanoi, my family has carefully followed the health alerts in Asia. We have been eating chickens in Hong Kong when the Hong Kong government began culling birds to prevent “chicken flu” out breaks. McNeil’s article has me thinking seriously about how I have been affected by other pandemics such as HIV Aids. The enormity of these health threats is hard for me to comprehend and yet simple personal actions can prevent the spread of most viruses. Our daily personal behavior becomes very important.

The potential threat of a global pandemic of H5N1, Avian Flu, is daunting and scary. Reporter Emmy Fitri, in The Jacarta Post, suggests that how a nation responds and prepares for potential health crisis can ultimately bring about radical changes for the better. Fitri suggests countries becoming “trend-setter in using the emergence of this avian influenza as precursor for expanded public health programs, tougher health policies, tighter surveillance, more research, better tests and greater public education.”

H5N1 is the springboard for the creation of the pieces in this exhibition. I am using elements in my work for both their literal and metaphorical power. A wishbone is literally part of a dead bird, it symbolizes the obvious yet also is potent as a vehicle of transformation—the longing for wish fulfillment. On some level if we wish hard enough all of the bad stuff will go away. There are obvious invisible connections between the pieces: desire/fear, germs/health, scientific theory/superstition, travel/home, fragility of life/finality of death.

The source material for this body of work is mid twentieth-century Kodachrome transparencies. Thanks to my Macintosh OS X Version 10.4.4 I am able to work from these in a way that previously was inaccessible and could only be emulated. Rather than merely projecting slides or having photographic prints made of them, I am able to scan the slides creting a digital file of the original source. I use Photoshop 8.0 to select specimens to work within, composing a final image that eliminates 90% or more of the original. Thus, the Kodachrome proves to be merely a springboard for the finished work. I then work like a painter, determining scale, color, and surface quality. In addition to the Giclee prints, I also use digital images to make intaglio plates that I then print by hand on a Conrad press.