Food for Thought
Call for Entries Accepted Artists

Artist Monika Malewska

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, USA

Chicken With Dentures
Watercolor

Artist Statement
My most recent series of paintings consists of large scale watercolors depicting various wreath-like arrangements made of bacon. Most of them are symmetrical and somewhat reminiscent of the Rorschach ink blot test. I enjoy combining the formal elegance of design with the recognizable banality of bacon, along with the surreal and absurd accompaniment of other decorative elements such as flowers, butterflies, and fruits. The arrangements are playful and whimsical in a rococo fashion but also grotesque

In my not-so-still still-lifes, I am hoping to draw subtle parallels between the decadence and frivolity evident in certain historical genres and our contemporary culture. My works employ the conventions of the historical still-life genre in relation to contemporary consumer culture in America. My use of meat, dolls, toys, and corporate icons bridges notions of kitsch and high art by alluding to the theme of Vanitas in seventeenth-century Dutch still-life paintings.