ROMANCE
Zora Moniz
i stage up late
Nov 11–Dec 22, 2023
*extended through Dec 29, 2023
A false image formed… (In the eye) in my eyes.
****
I experience migraines with aura–often described as a body's warning signal of impending pain–where I partially lose my vision for a period of time. I have experienced sporadic clusters of migraines since I was a teenager, sometimes months or years apart, and at the inception of this exhibition I had one for the first time in a few years. During these periods I am highly sensitive to light, and many components of these new works were made from bed in my dark room. For weeks after I fear the return of the blurry dots and ghostly strips of light that signal another migraine. I (think I) see things–dancing spots, bug-like forms or rippling shadowy shapes out of the corners of my eyes, provoking my excavation of shadow and ghost as image making tool, as parameter, and as analogy for missing form and shape: i stage up late.
i stage up late references a note I found tucked in the pages of a book that I cannot remember. It slipped out after I brought it home. Written on the note was “I stage up late” with a drawing of a wide open eye. I assume it was a child's note where they meant to write “I stayed up late”–I can’t find the note, but have repeatedly redrawn it. I wonder if the note might still be nestled in a book somewhere in my home.
***
Zora Moniz’s work sees what’s no longer there but is remembered. Her practice buries abstractions of encounters with loss, attempts at repair, and simultaneous play through near-fictions–depictions of a bed, or what could be a bed, with the hint of someone who could have once been there. Articles of clothing with no one (body) in it: items she’s lost, or were never hers to begin with. Ambient light emanates from papier-mâché floor sconces calling to mind petrified fabric, arresting something soft, or holding comfort in suspension. Ad-hoc floor box-cum-lamp sculptures might initially suggest beds with pillows or furniture covered with sheets, but the cluster forms an uneasy makeshift graveyard or small contained worlds functioning as sites of mending and control.
Developing her compositions through a slow process of layering (paper, paint, glue, scraps, fabric), concealment and disguise are important components: things re/joined, patched, covered up. Newsprint and paper ephemera collected from around New York City and Chinatown are collaged in both works on panel and paper sculptures utilizing a long standing Mexican handcraft technique to produce carton piedra (stone cardboard). Or redigesting imagery from former works and from her surrounding environment, she conjures a reassuring cycle of resurrection and recycling. Each motif feeds into another: swirls of spots like stepping stones on a garden path, MTA subway flooring patched with new linoleum, tacks to keep something in place, nails and screws on a stage floor, an ache in your head. In these artifacts of repair or (dis)order, Moniz both practices discomfort and creates self-soothing abstract effigies, amulets that allow for a working through the fear of the inevitable next round of pain to heal.
Zora Moniz (b. 1995, Oakland, California) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. She received her BA in World Arts and Cultures with a minor in Food Studies from UCLA's School of Arts and Architecture in 2017. She recently attended the Can Serrat Art Residency, El Bruc, Spain, in April 2022. She has been included in exhibitions at A.D. Gallery, New York; The Hole, New York; WHAAM!, New York; Sculpture Gallery, Broad Art Center, Los Angeles; and The Loft at Gallery 1548, Los Angeles.
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
10,313 days old (i can't remember the first day we met or re met), 2022
oil on panel
Photo: Chris Uhren
one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid), 2023
oil on canvas
24 x 18 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid) (detail), 2023
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
busy inside, 2023
graphite, paper, nails, and glue on panel
16 x 12 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
eye of my storm, 2022
acrylic on canvas
9 3⁄4 x 7 3⁄4 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
spring bed (after Bonnard’s Nude in the Bath, 1936), 2023
oil, pastel, and graphite on board
5 x 7 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
too much! world (ghost, orchid, snail, rib), 2023
oil, wax, colored pencil on canvas
18 x 24 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
too much! world (ghost, orchid, snail, rib) (detail), 2023
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
bar midnight (eternal), 2023
oil on canvas
18 x 24 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
hard feelings performer, 2023
aluminum, paper, graphite rubbing, nails, and glue on panel
9 x 12 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
hard feelings performer (detail), 2023
aluminum, paper, graphite rubbing, nails, and glue on panel
9 x 12 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
messy girl, 2023
oil, pastel, and graphite on board
5 x 7 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
messy girl, 2023
oil, pastel, and graphite on board
5 x 7 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
bedroom (aura), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, electrical components, found stone, paper pulp, aluminum, rivets, metal pull chain, wooden beads, jingle bell
6 x 14 x 9 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
desire path, 2023
aluminum, graphite, paper, nails, and glue on panel
8 x 10 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
reading under sheets, 2023
graphite on board
10 3⁄4 x 14 3⁄4 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
untitled (cloud painting) (detail), 2022/23
oil, paper, glue on panel
14 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
a tear spilled into my ear, 2022/23
oil pastel on paper
17 x 14 1/8 in. (framed)
Photo: Chris Uhren
too much to say, 2023
oil, pastel, and graphite on board
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
i stage up late, 2022/23
aluminum, paper, nails, and glue on panel
10 1⁄4 x 14 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
i stage up late, 2022/23
aluminum, paper, nails, and glue on panel
10 1⁄4 x 14 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
box for f (what do you do with what is left over and what is left over) (detail), 2023
cardboard, paper, electrical components, fabric
5 x 19 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
box for f (what do you do with what is left over and what is left over) (detail), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, fabric, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, rivets, metal snap, metal pull chain, jingle bell, belly button ring
5 x 19 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
box for f (what do you do with what is left over and what is left over), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, fabric, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, rivets, metal snap, metal pull chain, jingle bell, belly button ring
5 x 19 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
the kind of place you would forget to leave (detail), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, glass marbles, aluminum, rivets, 35 mm print, metal pull chain, wooden bead, jingle bell
6 1/2 x 27 x 17 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
the kind of place you would forget to leave, 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, glass marbles, aluminum, rivets, 35 mm print, metal pull chain, wooden bead, jingle bell
6 1/2 x 27 x 17 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
the kind of place you would forget to leave (detail), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, glass marbles, aluminum, rivets, 35 mm print, metal pull chain, wooden bead, jingle bell
6 1/2 x 27 x 17 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
the kind of place you would forget to leave (detail), 2023
cardboard, paper, tape, glue, electrical components, clamp, paper pulp, glass marbles, aluminum, rivets, 35 mm print, metal pull chain, wooden bead, jingle bell
6 1/2 x 27 x 17 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
z grew her first freckle, 2023
cardboard, paper, paper pulp, aluminum
Photo: Chris Uhren
z grew her first freckle, 2023
cardboard, paper, paper pulp, aluminum
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
biggest secret of them all, 2023
aluminum, paper, nails, and glue on panel
14 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
biggest secret of them all (detail), 2023
aluminum, paper, nails, and glue on panel
14 x 11 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
Installation view. Photo: Chris Uhren
death cafe, 2023
aluminum, graphite, marker, paper, nails, and glue on panel
8 x 10 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
death cafe, 2023
aluminum, graphite, marker, paper, nails, and glue on panel
8 x 10 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
to be seen, 2023
cardboard, paper, glue, fabric, electrical components, clamp, rivets, grommet, metal pull chain, wooden beads, jingle bell, belly button ring
9 x 24 x 6 in.
Photo: Chris Uhren
floaters, 2023
glass marbles
dimensions variable
Photo: Chris Uhren
glove for your entire body, 2023
wire, newspaper, flour, glue, sea salt, electrical components, wooden beads
dimensions variable
wearing lipstick so i don’t kiss you, 2022/23
wire, newspaper, flour, glue, sea salt, electrical components, metal pull chain, pop tabs, spike ball earrings
dimensions variable
Photo: Chris Uhren
wearing lipstick so i don’t kiss you (detail), 2022/23
wire, newspaper, flour, glue, sea salt, electrical components, metal pull chain, pop tabs, spike ball earrings
dimensions variable
Photo: Chris Uhren
wearing lipstick so i don’t kiss you (detail), 2022/23
wire, newspaper, flour, glue, sea salt, electrical components, metal pull chain, pop tabs, spike ball earrings
dimensions variable
Photo: Chris Uhren
floaters, 2023
glass marbles
dimensions variable
Photo: Chris Uhren