Nice concepts, lovely execution in the work of artist Mona Choo

Date
19 June 2012

Mona Choo’s work is a beautifully printed lucky dip filled with chiffon and seaweed, and carried through various landscapes filled with a diverse selection of characters. The Singapore-born artist studied graphic design and Illustration at Kingston, and in 2009 was awarded the international Print-in-Residence position at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Her early work features a meditation on the generation of meaning and on social taboo; her Healing series is a selection of herbs, arranged so as to appear like Chinese characters, sewed onto seaweed, photographed, and then screen-printed onto silk chiffon, while another work from the same period involves her confrontation of social taboos. More recently, her work has focussed on humanity and its relationship with the planet; her images often feature an interplay of landscape, trees, and human communities – in some cases, such as Chop Chop the sparse landscape, vulnerable burnt-looking remnants of trees, and clockface-moon clearly convey environmentalist concerns about the present and near-future.

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Mona Choo: One Moment. Mixed media

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Mona Choo: Observation. Painting

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Mona Choo: Burning Land. Mixed media

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Mona Choo: Chop Chop

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Mona Choo: Taboo – Feet, 1993. Oil-based screen print on Japanese paper

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Mona Choo: Taboo – Crotch, 1993. Oil-based screen print on Japanese paper

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Mona Choo: Taboo – Tongue, 1993. Oil-based screen print on Japanese paper

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Mona Choo: Healing I, 1993. Oil-based screen print on silk chiffon

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Mona Choo: Healing II, 1993. Oil-based screen print on silk chiffon

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Mona Choo: Healing III, 1993. Oil-based screen print on silk chiffon

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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