“Mona Dukess - The Mediated Eye” at the Larchmont Public Library

The Larchmont Public Library presents “Mona Dukess - The Mediated Eye”, in the Library’s Oresman Gallery from March 2, through March 30, 2012. The exhibit is free and open to everyone during normal library hours. There will be a reception for Ms. Dukess on Thursday, March 8, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm in the Oresman Gallery at the Library. The reception is also free and everyone is welcome.

A visual artist, Mona Dukess, has been exhibiting her art in museums, academic venues and galleries for over 30 years. Always fascinated by new processes, she works in a variety of media. She studied with Budd Hopkins, the late New York Abstract Expressionist painter, and works in collaboration with Paul Wong, master paper artist and Artistic Director of Dieu Donne Paper Mill in NYC. She is currently creating archival pigment prints, further honing her technical skills working in collaboration with digital artist, Henry Mandell.

The works exhibited in “Mona Dukess – The Mediated Eye” at the Larchmont Library are based on photographs she takes at “The Brook” (known to most as the Sheldrake River), in Larchmont. Interested in water in its many aspects, Dukess uses a small digital camera to capture images reflected on the surface of the brook’s waters. Through the multiple lenses of eye, camera, and water itself, she has documented changes in weather, the seasons, air temperatures, and the effects of motion and stillness of the river’s currents. From her hundreds of images she selects those that best transform reflected elements of nature into abstract compositions. Taking advantage of the capabilities of the computer as an artists’ tool, she adjusts her images through changes in scale, proportion and nuance before accepting them as fully realized “objects d’art”.  As an artist who worked for many years through the medium of handmade paper, Dukess put great importance in the compatibility of the surface on which she prints with the ultimate expression of her completed image.

The first exhibition of Mona Dukess’ art in this medium was a one-person show in August 2011, entitled “Mapped Waters”, at the Museum in Provincetown Massachusetts. Art critic, Cate McQuaid of the Boston Globe, had this to say in her review of Dukess’ exhibit: “…Mona Dukess sticks with a subject and cycles through a variety of techniques to properly capture it. Mapped Waters, her absorbing show…has her moving into digital photography. She blows up her photos of water, finding in the shadows a wealth of gestures. The shadows (often) stretch, bat and undulate like quivery ghosts. Stilled in photographs, they become gestural abstractions, and Dukess arrays all the wild lines and blots she captures into larger compositions.” (Boston Globe, Aug. 17, 2011).

Dukess’ has exhibited in several one-person shows that include the Kobalt Gallery (2007 & 2008) and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (2011). In addition to exhibiting her own art, Dukess has curated exhibitions in New York and Massachusetts. Her work is included in museums and many private and corporate collections including Bryn Mawr College, The J.V. Zimmerlii Art Museum at Rutgers University and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Mona Dukess lives and maintains studio in Larchmont and Cape Cod.

For additional information and images please visit  - www.monadukess.com

For more information about the exhibit, call the library at (914) 834-2281 or visit the library online at www.larchmontlibrary.org. Please call or visit the library online for exhibit hours.