Monique Barnett

Monique Barnett is a painter based between Australia and Germany. Interested in the representation of the body in, beauty and fame culture. Working principally with fashion and gossip magazines. Removing these images from their context seeking to find the flux in- between two and three dimensions and their contextual meanings. Barnett received her BFA in 2009 from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in New Zealand.

Barnetts creative process physically recreates this dimensional transformation to explore the concept of fame, immortality and infinity. It begins by cutting out figures from fashion and gossip magazines, with no curatorial process of who to cut out and who to leave behind. These cut outs are then pined and strung in a small three walled box, like a stage set, the figures are
transformed back into three-dimensional space. I then use my camera to take photos of this constructed diorama, projecting them back to two-dimensions. These photographs, a record of this transformation, is where the painting process begins. This process causes abstract mutations of the depicted figures and space. In the painting the figure becomes homogeneous, no longer identifiable cultural star, pop singer or model just well known bodies and faces abstracted into a space beyond the ordinary.

Canterbury University, School of Fine Arts

Selected Exhibitions
2020, On being light and liquid, at Rubicon ARI, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Impossibility of being a (w)hole, Tinning Street Presents, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Liquidity, Frappant.ev, Hamburg, Germany
2017 Poolside, Solo exhibition, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, Tasmania.
2016 Moreland Summer Show, Factivism, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Kalopsia, Solo exhibition, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, Victoria, Australia
2015 Kalopsia, Tinning Street Presents, Melbourne, Australia
2014 In The Flood, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne, Australia
2014 Paint, group exhibition, Melbourne Arts Club, Ruffian ARI, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Consume me, 69 Smith Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Image control, More Art, Installation at Brunswick train Station Melbourne, Australia
2013 Bond Song, group exhibition, Brunswick Arts Space, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Famesque, Tinning Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2012 Glory to the highest, Small works in small spaces, High View Arts Festival Melbourne, Australia
2012 SYMB*LS & S!GNS, Obscura Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2011 The Brunswick Show, The Donkey Wheel House, Melbourne, Australia
2011 Hell-bent, Brunswick Arts Space, Melbourne, Australia
2011 You Started it, group exhibition, The Pea Green Boat, Melbourne, Australia
2009 Select, group exhibition, SOFA Gallery, Arts Center, Christchurch, New Zealand
2009 Cunning Stunts, group exhibition, SOFA Gallery Canterbury University, New Zealand
Awards & finalist exhibition
2016 Adam Portraiture Award, finalist, National Portrait Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand. Travelled nationwide.
2016 Recipient of the research grant in the Wyndham Art Prize, Wyndham Cultural Center, Melbourne, Australia
2016 M Collection Award finalist exhibition, Gallery Smith, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Finalist for the Agendo Prize, Melbourne, Australia
2012 Recipient of the small works in small spaces prize, Northern Exposure Festival, Melbourne, Australia
2011 Finalist for the Agendo Prize, Melbourne, Australia