Artist Biography
Monica Blignaut (born 1994) is a South African artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. She specialises in painting and sculptural installations in which she explores her neurodivergent identity and her journey unpacking the complexities of meaning, connection and existence. She explores her work from a feminist perspective with materiality and language playing key elements in her practice.
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Monica uses creation and deconstruction in her work through materials, and languages and explores how the creative flow state and the artistic process itself are key parts of art making. She explores these constructs as a metaphorical representation to explore pain and the neurodivergent experience of living. Her artistic process is cathartic with the act of creating being key she documents this through photography and video.
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Her painterly techniques use broken brush strokes and layering to create optical illusions. She creates ‘poetic paintings’ where she uses freewriting techniques coupled with controlled breaks between focused flow state for hours and cathartic release where emotion is freed to create pieces.
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She explores a type of automatic writing which allows the process or product of writing to be written without using the conscious mind in an active way. She uses this in part to explore the parallel between narratives and understanding social norms. She does not attempt to connect to psychic energy but connects to the subconscious mind.
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Monica’s work uses her various hyperfocuses. Two key examples of the themes are how psychology and language are present in her work. Drawn on through her initial struggle with these topics due to her childhood experiences navigating her neuro-divergency and then excelling as a result of effort, assistance and therapy sessions.
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