Monica Morganti

For Monica Morganti, painting is something that permits her unconscious to manifest itself in rich, unpredictable symbols and colors. This is a subject of which the Rome-based self-taught painter has a profound understanding, as she is also a practicing Jungian psychoanalyst, and her mixed media compositions draw on the forms and iconography of Tibetan mandalas and a number of Eastern philosophies. Her process begins with a specific emotion, which conjures a series of colors and symbols in an associative process that results in works that are at once complex and arresting. In addition to bold, dominant acrylic tones she often adds gold leaf, silver dust or other materials to her geometric and floral paintings.
Each piece resonates evocatively despite coming from a very personal, subconscious place. Indeed, that mysterious generative source adds power to each piece, forming a strikingly intimate and powerful link with the viewer. The canvases combine organic, figurative forms with geometric shapes and abstract patterns that evoke traditions as varied as Ottoman mosaics and Art Deco architecture. Digging through our collective unconscious, Morganti finds buried treasure.