IYANA MONET

Leather, Satin and Suede

Graphite on paper

8.5 inches x 5.5 inches

Iyana Monet is a visual artist and dancer attuned to the body’s details as a physical form and a vessel of memory and expression. Her drawings inhabit the poses she choreographs in her mind.

Monet’s work explores anatomy through distortion and perspective, dramatizing the human form to reveal its emotional weight. Each figure carries a sense of performance–an echo of an entire life that has settled into a pose. She spends time with her characters, studying how long they’ve lived, what they’ve loved or regretted, and where those memories reside within their bodies.

Working primarily in graphite, the immediacy of her process mirrors the rawness of her subject matter. In many ways, her drawings reflect an evolving relationship with her own body as an instrument: sometimes limber and graceful, other times fragile and puny. Monet recognizes that as she ages, she will long for the sense of exhibition of her youth so she honors each wrinkle and fold in her pieces. Through her work, Monet pays homage to a body of bruises that healed quickly and taught skin unfettered by gravity. The figures she renders are deeply personal, yet speak to something shared and inevitable. They are part of her–but perhaps part of you, too.