Mónica Palma Artist in Residence
press release
February 16th – March 14th, 2021
Underdonk welcomes Mónica Palma as our February/March artist in residence. She will be completing a site specific installation in response to Underdonk’s gallery space over the course of a month.
Underdonk welcomes Mónica Palma as our February/March artist in residence. She will be completing a site specific installation in response to Underdonk’s gallery space over the course of a month.
Palma states, “The floor at Underdonk is a grid, with squares of about 20 x 20 cm covering its expanse. I looked down and saw a calendar waiting to be filled with activity. But the activities are on hold, and the floor has not been feeling the weight of bodies in a while.
In the Aztec calendar, each year has a quality associated with one of four concepts: rabbit,
cane, stone knife, or house, which offered at least some guidance on how a particular year was expected to be. This year, according to that calendar, is the year of the flint. The ancient Romans counted using stones, and it is easy to see how the weight of a stone makes a thing’s presence irrefutable.
In the oldest neighborhoods of New York City, the sidewalks are paved with bluestone,
a type of slate, and granite from the 19th century, quarried in New York and Pennsylvania. I notice broken slate on my walks and daily commute; I’ve been collecting pieces from the ground and bringing that outdoor floor indoors. I color the rocks with pencils and lay them on top of the gallery floor to help me count.”
Mónica Palma was born and raised in Mexico City, she studied visual art at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz. In 2008 she received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been living and working in Brooklyn since 2008. Her work has been shown at TSA (NYC), TSA (PHL), 245 Varet Street (NYC), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NYC), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Soloway Gallery (NYC), Underdonk Gallery (NYC) and Essex Flowers (NYC).
