Monika Michalko

Monika Michalko, 1982 Sokolov, lives and works in Berlin. Monika Michalko studied at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Hamburg one of her teachers was Norbert Schwontkowski. In her dreamy landscapes the echoes of modern classics like Malewich and Klee, resonate. But her work also refers to Joan Miro and the brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias. Her colorful paintings are inspired by her travels to Egypt, India and Turkey. You can see the influences from these countries in the architectural shapes which she uses in her works. Her works have been exhibited in Kunsthaus Hamburg in 2013, Kunsthaus Jesteburg in 2016 and in Art Cologne in 2016.

In her paintings, which she usually shows in a site-specific installation, Michalko uses a simple, abstract vocabulary of triangles, squares, lines, circles and ovals. She uses often text in her work, like words or short sentences in painterly typography. The viewer meanders through images of decorated rhythms, plant-like motives and exuberant layers. She combines all these elements into an assertive, ornamental and organic order, which is then happily disturbed by pure abstraction in the shape of dynamic asymmetries or, and this seems a paradox, by venturing off into the kingdom of figuration.

Monika Michalko’s works have been shown in Amsterdam by LANGart in solo presentations “Dancing with Thovil” in 2017 and “Ambivalenzia” in 2022 and in a group exhibition “Gestut” in 2007 curated by Norbert Schwontkowski and in a duo presentation with Christoph Blawert in 2009.