Monica Franciscus
Fish
2023
In 2023 the industrial revolution is over. Ubiquitous robots, and IT have entered the workplace with resulting unemployment, poverty, and inequality. I refuse to buy products to create more, given the excess produced and trashed. My art repurposes plastic car bumpers/car body parts otherwise headed for landfills. These are symbolic for being the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases and tire wear particles, for large corporations and the 1% collaborating with politicians prioritizing profit at the expense of the environment and humanity‘s well-being. At the end of the day, nothing else matters much– if the environment is ruined, and if corporations and politicians don’t set up policies that benefit the people on a massive scale. The plastic sculptures are about sustainability, for how we navigate the world, the materials we choose to use, policies, and employment that serves everyone’s wellbeing.
About the Artist
After growing up in several European countries and cities in the U.S., always with an eye on art, architecture, design, and aesthetics, Monica settled in Ithaca, NY. As she became increasingly aware of the environment, overproduction of goods, landfills, and poverty, she switched from being a figurative painter to repurposing found objects, settling on plastic car bumpers. The highly designed, aerodynamic forms, and metallic colors are seductive and beautiful. The abundance of trashed material led to the “thrill of the find” in dumpsters, and quickly had her figuring out how to work with the parts to create sculptures. She refuses to buy materials given the excess of “stuff”. Making colorful forms that in no way resemble a car or seem like plastic is compelling. She aims to provoke conversations/awareness on climate change, sustainability, consumerism, equality, and shed light on the effects of a society that prioritizes profit.