"Patterns of Consumption" by Kalliopi Monoyios
“Creating beauty from a workhorse material that society undervalues and treats as disposable is an act of devotion and hope.”
Thank you, Sponsor!
Both exhibitions “Patterns of Consumption” by Kalliopi Monoyios and “A Love Letter to Indian Creek” by Clarissa Fortier were generously sponsored by EverGreen ZeroWaste.
EverGreen ZeroWaste has committed its human and financial resources to operate in a manner that produces a positive, material impact on society and the environment.
Learn more at evergreenzerowaste.com
Carbondale Arts presented “Patterns of Consumption” a solo exhibition by mixed media artist Kalliopi Monoyios at the Carbondale Arts Gallery on display August 16 through September 19, 2024. The opening reception took place Friday, August 16, from 5-7pm at The Launchpad, with an artist talk at 5:30pm.
“A Love Letter to Indian Creek” a solo show featuring works by Clarissa Fortier ran concurrently (August 16 - September 19) in the first gallery space.
Though much of the environmentally-themed work we see that deals with plastic is about shame and guilt, Denver-based mixed media artist Kalliopi Monoyios’ work seeks to reach people by embracing the complexity of our relationship with the material and speaking openly about it. By treating it with devotion, like the precious resource it is, Kalliopi is pointing her finger at consumerism as the root of our pollution problems, while honoring a material that makes modern life efficient and comfortable.
The artist collects, washes, folds, and sews food wrappers into quilts that could be handed down through generations as heirlooms. She folds plastic into thousands of interlocking modular origami pieces while meditating on her wish for a solution to the plastic pollution problem. She embroiders yards of dental floss into shimmering geometric arrays to pose the question of whether Teflon — a material that is virtually indestructible in the environment — is best used for 30 seconds between people’s teeth, or as an archival piece of art.
Creating beauty from a workhorse material that society undervalues and treats as disposable is an act of devotion and hope. Only when we fully appreciate how integral it is to our lives and our livelihood can we imagine the nuanced and complex solutions that will move us forward into the next era of innovation.
Kalliopi Monoyios, mixed media artist, Denver, Colorado
Kalliopi Monoyios is an artist working to mature the conversation around plastic and American consumerism. Though much of the environmentally themed work about plastic leads with guilt and shame, her work seeks to balance that with awe and beauty in an effort to embrace the complexity of our relationship with the material—on the one hand, it is a concerning environmental pollutant; on the other, it makes contemporary life possible.
Monoyios graduated from Princeton University with a degree in geology. She built her early career as a science illustrator for the prominent paleontologist Neil Shubin at The University of Chicago. Her illustrations have appeared inside and on the covers of peer-review journals such as Nature and Science as well as The New York Times best-selling book Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. She co-founded and wrote Symbiartic, a blog covering the intersection of art and science for Scientific American. She served as president of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, an international group of visual science communicators, from 2020-2022. Now she is developing new avenues of public engagement with conservation science via her own art and curated exhibits.
Learn more about Kalliopi at kalliopimonoyios.com or on Instagram @kalliopi.monoyios
Enjoy the artist talk from opening night (August 16, 2024). Kalliopi's talk begins around the 17'40" mark.