Monique van Genderen

Monique van Genderen concluded her residency at Chinati with an exhibition that featured one site-specific wall drawing and several large and small panel paintings. Van Genderen makes dynamic abstractions, mixing commercial materials—sign paint, vinyl adhesive film—with more traditional media such as oil paint and enamel. This material juxtaposition creates tension between graphic and more gestural passages; recognizable forms are implied, but remain elusive. On the Locker Plant’s east wall, Van Genderen combined sweeping and jagged pale gray lines with dense, dark areas of blues and greens alluding to botanical forms and cut from vinyl adhesive. On the opposite wall of the gallery, a large black panel painting with small vinyl abstractions offered a heavier weight to the lightness of the wall painting. In her panel paintings, Van Genderen mixed opalescent vinyl fragments—hand-cut and irregularly shaped—with paint strokes in blues, browns, pinks, oranges, greens, and yellows. These compositions were set against backgrounds of varying shades of blue and white iridescent tinting paint. As the sunlight poured through the windows, it was caught on the works’ reflective surfaces, seemingly in constant motion, suffusing and retreating from each composition.

Van Genderen is based in Los Angeles. She has participated in many group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States. In early 2004 she had shows at the Happy Lion Gallery in Los Angeles and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Van Genderen was selected to participate in the 48th Biennial at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 2005. Her work is in private and public collections including the Altoids Collection and the Eileen Harris and Peter Norton Family Foundation. Van Genderen graduated from the University of California at San Diego and received her master’s degree in fine art from California Institute of the Arts.