Monica Banks is a sculptor who has worked in many mediums, from large-scale steel public works to fine wire and found objects. Inspired by the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, she started working in porcelain to form one-inch long human corpses and writhing figures, as a tribute to the anonymous victims of this and other natural and man made disasters.
She added life-size porcelain portraits of flowers, teeth, insects, feathers, pebbles, and birds to her imagery to evoke the full range of joyful and tragic occasions that swirl around us, and in 2015 started aggregating all these elements on homemade porcelain cakes. The cakes are a series of domestic monuments to life’s enchantments and perils. The prettiness of the cakes and their corresponding plates is an invitation to explore the emotions evoked by the elements on top.
Monica Banks is based in East Hampton, NY and has been exhibiting sculpture and creating site-specific installations since 1989. She has exhibited at the New Britain Museum of American Art, CT; The Heckscher Museum of Art, NY; The Carriage House at Islip Art Museum, NY; The Center for Architecture, NYC; The Arkell Museum, NY; The Church Sag Harbor, NY; among others. Her work is held in permanent collections of The Parrish Art Museum, NY; UMCA at the University of Massachusetts, The Islip Art Museum, NY; LongHouse Reserve, NY; The Leiber Collection, NY; Peter Marino Art Foundation, NY; The Masur Museum of Art, LA; and the Catherine Konner Sculpture Park, NY. She won an award from the NYC Public Design Commission for "Faces: Times Square,” a block-long sculpture which stood in Times Square from 1996-2009. Banks has created permanent public works in the Bronx, NY; Binghamton, NY; and Charlotte, NC.