Monica Banks is a sculptor who has worked in many mediums, from large-scale steel public works to fine wire and found objects. In 2010, inspired by the earthquake in Haiti, she started working in porcelain to form one-inch-long writhing figures, to commemorate anonymous victims of this and other natural and man-made disasters.
Soon her lexicon grew to include porcelain portraits of daily objects -flowers, teeth, insects, feathers, pebbles, and birds – all things that can evoke the full range pf joy and pain that is part of life. Many of these objects decorated cakes as domestic monuments to life’s enchantments and perils. Recently, Banks has made her portraits of flowers, creating delicate detailed porcelain flowers in various stages of life. Banks sculpts to scale and will observe one subject multiple times, effectively creating snapshots of nature’s brief lifespan as it buds, blossoms, wilts, and dies.
Monica Banks lives and works 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.