2014, 2015 and ongoing
60 x 40 and 20 x 30 color prints on aluminum backing, recessed back frame, UV protection and laminate coating
“In Monet Clark’s color photographs, the artist casts herself in the performative role of hybridized ingenue, a sexualized woman operating within a catastrophic landscape. In each image she appears objectified, or “acted upon” by the viewer’s probing gaze, yet the space she occupies suggests environmental devastation, or at the very least, the leavings of our human existence.” –-Art and Cake
“Monet Clark’s color photographs, give us images that point to the invasion of the natural world by human beings, and the destruction that cavalier dominance can cause.” –Diversions LA
The Performance in Nature series explores human being’s relationship to nature, sexual stereotypes, class, dichotomy and paradox. It juxtaposes a reverence for the natural world and a recognition of its sentience, with the visual language of advertising, pop culture and the fashion world. With wry humor the images reflect the multifaceted implications that are a part of the capitalistic visual machinery, which through sexually charged iconography is simultaneously exploitative and reductive, liberating and empowering. These pieces contemplate the connection between the treatment of women and the degradation of our environment, and ultimately human beings oneness with the natural world. Monet works in front of and behind the camera in her long standing method of framing her real life events as performances which are documented with still images, and in her semi-autobiographical performance/video pieces. These images are shot in a town of northern California where Monet has returned throughout her life, after being raised in the Back to Nature subculture of the area in the 1970s.
