Monica Oppen Monica Oppen i(A45602 works by) (a.k.a. Monica Charlotte Oppen)
Born: Established: 1964
c
Switzerland,
c
Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 y separately published work icon A Common Sense of Nature : Urban Wilderness Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2015 9394641 2015 single work picture book

Designated the third part of the Botanikos Project, A Common Sense of Nature comprises colour photographs, colour illustrations and text by Oppen. The work is an artist’s book on the local environment of Sydney, while demonstrating the deficiencies of our language to pin-point the true beauty, complexities and eccentricities the natural world.

1 y separately published work icon From the City into Trees Robert Macfarlane , Tony Jupiter , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2015 9394000 2015 single work picture book

The seventh part of Monica Oppen's Botanikos project, From the City into Trees comprises images and graphics by Oppen, along with text extracts from Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places (2007) and Tony Jupiter's What has Nature Ever Done for Us?: How Money Really Does Grow on Trees (2013). This work and the related work Night-Walker, were influenced by a hand drawn creation created by Oppen at art school in 1989.

1 y separately published work icon Night-Walker Monica Oppen (illustrator), Robert Macfarlane , Stanmore : Ant Press , 2015 9392962 2015 single work picture book

This work is the sixth part of the Oppen's Botanikos project. Designed and illustrated (some illustrations coloured) by Oppen, the text extracts are from The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane (2007). Night-Walker and From the City into Trees were influenced by a hand drawn creation Oppen did while at art school in 1989.

1 y separately published work icon Earth Sky Michael Marder , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2015 9392728 2015 single work picture book

This is the second book of the Botanikos project. The work covers the relationship between human philosophy/life and plants and the overall effect that nature has on the human life. Oppen produces photographs of botanic gardens and the sky, and uses select texts from Michael Marder's Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (2013) to explore human life's dependency on the ‘green world’.

1 y separately published work icon Possession - Dispossession Anne Twigg (illustrator), Monica Oppen , Stanmore : Ant Press , 2015 9392069 2015 single work picture book

Produced in the form of a clam shell box, Possession - Dispossession 'began with the painted book. The text is extracts from William Bradley's journal (A Voyage to New South Wales.). Bradley was one of the officers on the first fleet under the command of Arthur Phillip, which arrived in what is now known as Sydney Harbour in January 1788. Their intention was to establish a convict colony. Bradley was involved with the surveying of the harbour. In essence this surveying, seemingly harmless, was key in the process of possession and dispossession. The box is essentially a trompe l'oeil suggesting a particular reality but revealing another' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

1 y separately published work icon Horizon W. A. W. De Beuzeville , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2014 9391678 2014 single work picture book

This work features text from a book by W.A.W de Beuzeville, an avid forest ecologist and the author of Australian Trees for Australian Planting (1947). Through this text, Oppen reworks passionate feelings against deforestation and the environmental degradation that comes with it. In chosen texts, Beuzeville also talks of land areas needing to escape from the busy-ness of the industrialised human life. The work features relief prints that expose the horizon as being a harsh, barren line. Through this work Oppen pushes her love for the sacred natural world, and her fear of human life destroying it (and in turn, inevitably destroying itself).

1 'Monica Oppen : Hits and Misses 2014' Monica Oppen , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Pretext : Creative Books in the Antipodes 2014;

In this paper, first presented at the the 2014 Codex Australia 2014, Monica Oppen talks the impilses that drove her make books and the challenges she encountered.

1 y separately published work icon Life Cycles >3 : Love Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2013 9391593 2013 single work picture book

White gloves are stitched to printed sheets so when the reader pulls them on, they realise that they are attached to the pages. The five texts that are featured in the work contain the stunted and embittered parts of communication in a relationship. This work invites the reader/viewer to connect themselves (both physically and emotionally) to the relationship they discover through the texts.

1 Collecting Books by Artists Monica Oppen , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: Biblionews and Australian Notes and Queries , September no. 375 2012; (p. 103-113)
1 y separately published work icon Dare to Vote! Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2012 9391382 2012 single work picture book

Produced for the exhibition 'Lesson in History II: Democracy,' this art book is 'about the vote or choice of the people. In this book the word DEMOCRACY is tagged with myriad words both positive and negative that have become linked to democracy and the political and democratic process in Australia. There is a voting sheet included so a vote can be taken of those for or against democracy' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

1 y separately published work icon Morning Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2012 9391317 2012 single work picture book

Comprising pictures and letterpress printing, this art book was created and produced for the inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street- a street located in Baghdad, Iraq. Considered the the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community, it was bombed in March 2007. San Francisco poet and activist Beau Beausoleil developed and promoted numerous projects commemorating the street Al-Mutanabbi Street. One of these, the Al-Mutanabbi Street Inventory, was a call to poets, writers and artists from around the world to produce a series of letterpress printed broadsides in response to the bombing and to reflect on the healing process.

1 Instant History Peter Lyssiotis , Monica Oppen , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Silent Scream : Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists 2011; (p. 114-115)
1 Homeland Peter Lyssiotis , Monica Oppen , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Silent Scream : Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists 2011; (p. 104-105)
1 A Gardener at Midnight: Travels in the Holy Land Peter Lyssiotis , Monica Oppen , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Silent Scream : Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists 2011; (p. 106-107)
1 Journey of a Wise Electron and Other Stories / Three Cheers for Civilization Peter Lyssiotis , Monica Oppen , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Silent Scream : Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists 2011; (p. 68-71)
1 y separately published work icon The Silent Scream : Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists Monica Oppen , Peter Lyssiotis , Bibliotheca Librorum Apud Artificem , Petersham : Ant Press , 2011 Z1825725 2011 anthology criticism

Published by Ant Press for Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem, The Silent Scream 'presents, not only a companion catalogue to an exhibition held at Monash University Rare Books, but also a journey through some of humanity's most inhumane and hypocritical moments. Reaching back to William Blake with a facsimile of his illuminated book America : A Prophecy then travelling through the two world wars and on to the modern era the catalogue provides insights into 77 influential books and works presented in book form.... For the first time in Australia the work of Australian artists and writers working in the field of bookarts have been placed into a context with an international and historical perspective. Each book has been profiled with images and an accompanying commentary. Monica Oppen and Peter Lyssiotis, both practicing artists, lend their unique perspective to the social content and the techniques behind the production of these books' (Bibliotheca Librorum Apud Artificem website).

1 y separately published work icon Case : Angel Ryan Monica Oppen , Grace King , Peter Lyssiotis (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2011 9378694 2011 single work picture book

Oppen responds to a suite of images, a proof of a book which has never been finished given to her by Lyssiotis. Finding the images brutal and confronting rather than throwing the work away she writes her response questioning how far has feminism got us if someone can still nonchalantly produce images such as these. The coda text about patriarchy is from Grace King’s tumblr stream and was used with permission. This book focuses on keeping open discussion about women, feminism, the patriarchy, media and the overall possibility of gender equality in our present and future societies.

'The most powerful way to breakdown stereotypes is by asking questions, by keeping discussion alive. Only then can we move towards a new reality' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

The second edition was produced in the style and with the materiality of a famous magazine. The images were taken from a selection of women's magazines, notably Harper’s Bazar.

1 y separately published work icon Blue Planet Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2010 9378369 2010 single work picture book

Oppen reflects on the way in which we as people can struggle to represent the planet. Both maps and words and images can only ever show fragments.

'To make this book, I've taken an old school atlas and cut out the map pages and refolded them and stitched them together in a away that there is no beginning or end. The book is circular. The sections can be unfolded. The small photographic images are from another book about life on earth. All organic forms. An atlas is a representation of the planet. We struggle constantly to capture the planet in a form we can understand' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

1 y separately published work icon 4 Women Crying (The Failure of Love) Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2009 9378083 2009 single work picture book

'This work comes from four incidents where I noticed women crying, while travelling on public transport. I remember one incident specifically, where a women was talking on her mobile phone and muffling her crying. As far as I could work out it was a relationship break up. It is one of the strange things about mobile phones that private life suddenly has become public. However I also get caught out, reading a sad passage in a book and wiping away the tears' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

1 y separately published work icon Dark Forest II Monica Oppen , Monica Oppen (illustrator), Stanmore : Ant Press , 2009 9377960 2009 single work picture book

Working on the same set of sheets as Dark Forest but collated and folded differently a new text has been overlaid" (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

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