There is a specific moment when the thin veneer of civilization is broken and we are no longer looking at an illusion but instead looking at ourselves perceiving it. 

These paintings psychoanalyze the mental delirium of power dynamics, in both public ruling structures and those hidden behind covert personal traumas. The painted imagery scintillates and fades between sinister and majestic, grotesque and imperial. There is an exposing of the dark emotional upheaval, yet curiously poetic allure, of cognitive dissonance and dissociation.

Pictorially, they illuminate an Old Master style; the subjects are posed, the mood is dramatic, but they also exploit and contemporize it; the locus of composition is skewed, the light logic is reversed. Meticulously choreographing a dramatic dynamic between the subject and the space it occupies, the work is able to guide, critique and call into question the generic way a painting is received. Using obscured installation and subtle shifts of color and light temperature, the viewing experience becomes nuanced and introspective. In doing so, another conversation emerges concerning traditionally voyeuristic compositions, the male gaze, social-sexual empowerment issues and queer feminism. 

The intention is to reify a sort of psychological, reflexive experience, where the thing being viewed demands a self- critical penetration of vision. Ultimately the paintings aim to set up a curious visual experience for the viewer where they can actively engage in reflexive looking.

Zära Monet is an exhibiting artist based in Los Angeles. She has a BA from UCLA and an MFA from LCAD. Monet’s paintings are published in Artillery, LA Weekly, Huffington Post, Manifest, Juxtapoz and Beautiful Bizarre periodicals. She has been awarded over fourteen solo shows and thirty seven selected group exhibitions in the past five years, including Museum of Art and History: CEDAR- Lancaster, Carnegie Art Museum- Oxnard, Torrance Art Museum, Billis Williams Gallery, Brea Art Gallery, CES Contemporary Gallery, 101 Exhibit Gallery, CMAY Gallery, CAP Gallery and Eastern Projects Gallery. Her credentials also include numerous national and international art residencies and first place honors at juried group exhibitions. Monet has also worked as an art professor, teaching painting, drawing and color theory for ten years.