Monet Clark
b. Los Angeles, 1968
I am a video artist, photographer, performance artist, and I work in other mediums. With wry humor and elaborate styling and costuming I address eco-feminist themes and social issues. My characters references sub-culture, old Hollywood, advertising, marginalized groups, history and more. I often capture my performances in sweeping landscapes in the natural world with my cameras on tripods. I frame and shoot myself to make still photographs and performance video movies. My works play off of sexual stereotypes, objectification and the male gaze, exploitation, cultural biases, mysticism, and nature’s sentience. My eco-feminist theories and art making practice is rooted in my tri-racial ancestry and the decolonization my family underwent as part of the back-to-nature subculture in which I was raised. Further shaping my work is the holistic, indigenous, and mystic disciplines I have rigorously trained in to recover my health from a life threatening disability. I am currently working with female archetypes and animal/woman hybrid characters to explore the relationships between internalized misogyny, animal rights, disability and recovery, and the repair of our global biosphere. I call my practice Holistic Intersectionality.
I have shown with SFMOMA’s Now Playing series; at the Northern California Museum of Art, Chico; had a solo exhibition with Krowswork Gallery, Oakland; a 10 screen performance video installation collaboration with John Sanborn at SF Camerawork; shown with Almost Public/Semi Exposed performance art festival, SOMArts, and Telematic Gallery in San Francisco; with Chicago’s International Performance Art Festival; RETHink Art Digital, Rethymno, Greece; Bideodromo, Bilbao, Spain; Palos Verdes Art Center, CA; The Kitchen in NYC, presented by EAI; WP8, Dusseldorf, Germany; the Smart Show Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden; and the Mondrian Hotel for the Amanda M. Obering Gallery of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, and many more.
In 2020 I curated the virtual Invocation Democracy, A Political and Mystical Exhibition for ProArts Commons, Oakland. In 2021 I was artist in residence with the International Living Future Institute Portland, Oregon where I curated the show Ritual for a Living Future. In 2022 I participated in the accelerator international performance art program EmergeNYC, and was hosted by NYC’s virtual Interior Beauty Salon with FLYING BLIND, Raven Woman, Monet Clark Interviewed by Chicken Woman, Linda Mary Montano a collaborative performance video work with the performance art icon.