Monika Meler

Sukienka w Komorki
relief print
61 x 19.75 in.

This work presents nostalgia I have for my childhood in Poland, which I began viewing as a stifling virus upon realization that my past was much more important to me than my present or future. After years of being aggressively tied to this nostalgia, I now realize that this “virus” cannot be completely cured or contained–it must simply be accepted. This discovery leads me to my use of the permeable vessel as a form symbolic of my body during childhood and adulthood.

I interpret my leaving Poland as a fall from grace, because it signified the end of my childhood, viewed in retrospect as paradise. The verticality of my prints recreates a sensation of falling. The horizontal split implies the divide between past and present, Poland and America, real and non-real. When past and present are placed on the same sheet of paper, paradoxical similarities are revealed. Repetition of images forms reflections and represents a direct visual link to the past. Past and present are revealed to be a continuum, rather than binary opposites.

The paintings evolve from an exploration of landscape features and the concepts and ideas which surface and develop.

© Monika Meler