September 8 – October 14, 2006

www.lauramosquera.com

Laura Mosquera continues her fascination painting fashionable people in abstract environments, but the work in her exhibition in the deep end shows a more pronounced intimacy and emphasis on solitary figures in various states of intense emotion that was purposefully absent in earlier work. The lone painting included in the show was the catalyst for the exhibition, which is dominated by a new series of obsessive-yet-soft colored pencil drawings alongside her remarkably delicate graphite drawings. Still working from her own snapshots, Mosquera also takes inspiration from fashion magazines and movie stills. Her “…compositional device is cinematic, used in movies to suggest intimacy between a singular subject and a mass audience.” Christopher Knight, LA Times

The artist states “the work is grounded in contemporary human experience, reflections of everyday life, exploring the representation of reality and the perception of what is real and its construction. While there is no linear narrative, there is enough information to suggest a mood enhanced by very specific titles that offer a point of departure for interpretation. The drawings and paintings are constructed with the use of snapshots. The work acts like movie stills, capturing moments frozen in time. Each piece evokes a nostalgic referential interior world. True nostalgia is nostalgia for the present; the melancholic awareness that the present is always what is in the process of coming apart, of ceasing to exist. In general the story is one of a sense of loss, of something missing, an intangible. Through each piece there is the idea of longing and searching for this intangible.”

Laura Mosquera (Guatemalan, lives Chicago) was born Panama City in 1966. This long overdue exhibition is her second solo show at moniquemeloche — the first was in 2001 concurrent with her Museum of Contemporary Art 12×12 as their inaugural exhibit! In the interim she has had solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Spain. Her work is in such public collections as the Centro de Arte De Salamanca, Spain; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Federal Reserve Bank, and the City of Chicago. Mosquera currently teaches at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Friday Oct 9, 2001

Laura Mosquera’s paintings and drawings feature people drawn from contemporary culture adrift in fields of color and patterns that combine to form an unreal background of spatial dislocation. Depicting a web of relationships with no set narrative, Mosquera’s work describes the anxiety of detachment while representing the beauty of shared experience. Suggestive titles like “There’s Something About to Happen Again” and “Interesting Things Will Begin to Develop” along with extreme attention to detail simultaneously belie and reveal the complexities of the art world in which she participates and the human condition in general. Mosquera studied architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and received her BFA in 1996 and MFA in 1999 in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Mosquera currently has solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago – the first in their new series “12 x 12: New Artists/New Work” through October 28th, and at the Savannah College of Art Design through Nov 12th. New work can also be seen at DeChiara Gallery in NY in a group show “Slice of Life” through Nov. 10th. Watch for a new public work with 8 billboards opening later this fall in the Red Line subway station at Chicago Ave. and State Street curated by MCA curator Staci Boris for the CDOT “Adopt A Station” project.

Thursday, Aug 23, 2001

moniquemeloche invites you to a special 1-night event: “SHOW US SOME SKIN”, featuring new sculptural garments by CAT CHOW from her “Second Skin” series. Using flesh-toned hospital bands, band-aids, and nipples Cat Chow continues to explore the intersection of art and fashion in her new series. Her project is partially supported by a grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency and is on view thru 8/31.

Also on view is related work by gallery artists Carla Arocha, Hans Askheim/Irina Melsom, John White Cerasulo, Robert Davis/Michael Langlois, Laura Mosquera and Allison Ruttan, with special guest Jason Pickleman!

Don’t miss our neighbor Hollis Funk’s event that same night starting at 8pm. An evening of fashion and furniture design by recent grads of SAIC – Fashion show 9pm $10.

Jun 22 – Jul 28, 2001

Using its walls for the first time, Monique Meloche gallery will enter summer with a group exhibition called mixer: a combination of gallery artists and other young artists working both in and outside of Chicago. Painting is prevalent in mixer, with artists Hans Askheim/Irina Nissen Melsom, Joe Baldwin, Rob Davis/Mike Langlois, Dzine, Gabert Farrar, Laura Mosquera, Christopher Patch, and Pamela Wilson. Both abstract and representational painting is featured, with some artists exploring issues of collaborative painting. MMG has also thrown into the mix, large digital video stills by Alison Ruttan, who references Post-Modernist painting by manipulating pornographic films-here an exporation of obese porn, and an object installation by José Versoza concerned with relationships between family, identity, culture, fantasy and failure.