Conversation with Mona Lisa Farida Oates (MonaOates) - Evolving consciousness

From her birthplace, a village near the Dutch border in Germany, Mona headed for an international boarding school in Singapore, where she furthered her desire for creation, which already originated in her early life. After finishing, the decision to take a gap year took her to Estonia. The long Estonian winter allowed her to draw and to apply to universities. In Chester, England, she attended psychology with fine art, the latter being theoretically minor but much more important to her personal expression. Back in Germany she took a few art workshops, exhibited once and found an artist who wanted to be her mentor. However, at the right moment Mona moved instantly to the USA to join her husband, leaving everything behind. Over the course of the years she recognized the necessity for journals and the contextual background behind the creational process, as well as developed a deeper understanding about her creations that she relates to issues of identity.

custos What has your international childhood community provided you with?

MonaOates Well, I do not specifically look at my community and how they have provided me with connections and ideas. I rather think in retrospective what I have experienced and what has influenced me as a person. The greatest sources are the different atmospheres, nature and human communication or cultural interaction. The most that I have learned personally is to see issues and certain moral behaviours from different viewpoints. The ability to understand why there are different rights and wrongs so to speak. Lately, I have realised that I am a very intuitive person and that this emotional turmoil around me has strong effects on my artwork. Whether it was the emotional exhaustion of sitting on a train in India for twenty-eight hours or the time when I lived in Singapore and the Tsunami hit all the surrounding countries such as Indonesia. Of course also the serenity that surrounds one when climbing a big mountain impacts my art and me.

custos Why did you want to get away from your birthplace?

MonaOates When I was a teenager it hit me quite abruptly that I do not want to stay in this small village. I projected my isolation and the small town mentality onto entire Germany. Even though I must admit I have not travelled Germany much. To be honest I know other countries better than my own. Anyhow, through coincidence I heard about the United World College program and applied. I did not get in right away but I needed to leave so I stayed determined and applied for the following year, which granted me access to an opportunity that would make me the person I am now. I learned to learn and be ambitious, tenacious and to stick with the things that I want the most. After many thoughts back about my home place I see now how beautiful it is and that my nation has a lot to offer. Nevertheless, I do not feel that I can go back. I feel more at home through travelling and experience nations, culture and natures.

custos What led you in your decisions about each further step?

MonaOates After Singapore, I really moved with the wind. There were directions that I took but without coincidences and chance I would not have been to the places I went to. You could look at it like a sailing boat at sea. It has a goal, a sort of direction it wants to go. However without the wind or currents of the ocean it could not reach its destination. With every decision I took there was always some sort of external force. Not necessarily people telling me what to do but certain conditions triggered the following step. I wanted to take a gap year but did not have any thought of what place, country or even type of job I would be doing. I researched in the little timeframe I had and found a place that offered me something new, something that I had no idea about; in this case it was Estonia. This little country is beautiful plus I never really knew anything about it and then it turns out the people were one of the first settling nations in Europe and the oldest Pharmacy is placed in Tallinn.

custos How have you realized your talent for drawing, for creating?

MonaOates I do not really regard to my drawing and then painting as a talent rather as a necessity, an impulse. I cannot remember when it started and why I was doing it. I only know from tales of my parents and slight memories as a child that I did it a lot and got into trouble here and there. For example as an infant I drew on my parents' living room walls. The images looked like spiky hedgehogs of some sort but to me they were fish. Evidently, I always drew. I remember in elementary school that the teacher talked to my parents that they have to put me into place because I was drawing in my mathematics books during class (I never stopped). On top of that I was blessed with a good music education. My parents let me learn whatever possible. I taught myself the piano, didgeridoo and cello. Nothing of that would have come about without my early music education in kindergarden and strict violin lessons from the age of six. Now music has subsided a little bit for me. However, I do use a lot of music to create the mood that I want to express in a painting. How it works is that I sketch something down or have a "vision". From there I sort of know what the emotional expression should be like. To bring me into this disposition I need to listen to music. Particularly, I am intrigued by music that is dramatic and emotionally loaded, especially when it comes to the feeling of being lost or disconnected. I find a strong interest in modern classical music, postrock and certain soundtracks for movies. Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, Ludovico Einaudi and Thee Silver Mt. Zion are some of my all time favourites.

custos It sounds very interesting that you have spent some time in Singapore - would you tell us more about it?

MonaOates The school I attended, the United World College of South East Asia, is an international semi-boarding school. More than two thousand students go there from kindergarden to high school. Since I left they have built a second campus. It was the best experience and the toughest education that I ever received. I flew out of Germany straight for thirteen hours to Singapore. It was my first flight and I was without anyone I knew. Landing there I was in the hands of people I never met or talked to. It all went well. The first three months I did not understand a word in class and was too afraid to ask the teachers. This was such a culture shock that I just tagged along and see where it goes. I lived with one hundred and fifty other international students in a boarding house. Many nations and all continents where represented. Every month or two we had international evenings where certain regions organised an event with music, dances, presentations and food. All took part so it was not just Germans or Indians or Kenyans in one evening, instead we all learned dancing or singing something from a certain place in the world. Also from Singapore I travelled a lot. My school is very much involved in humanitarian projects to help out villages, orphanages etc, hence I learned to take a holiday without sitting at a pool and sipping Margaritas. No, I was actually involved with my direct surrounding, which led to direct interaction and connection with people. Through projects like building a library for an orphanage in Thailand, working on a farm in India or taking care of disabled children in Estonia or cleaning parks it was possible to get into touch with the countries.

custos How were your years in Chester like?

MonaOates I loved England as soon I moved there. There is no other country where I felt so much at home. At university I was very active with voluntary services. Being an international mentor gave me opportunities to connect to more nations. I was quite involved with the Fine Arts department as soon I started studying there. Even though it was my minor I became student representative. This gave me an opportunity to get to know more students and to reflect upon the program with the professor directly. Eventually, I became the representative of the entire Arts and Media campus to speak for the Arts students in the student union. During the summer before my senior year I travelled India for seven weeks, which influenced my entire year after. It was such an overwhelming experience in all directions that life back in the norm was almost an anti-climax. However, my efforts and engagement with the university was rewarded with the university's Fine Art Prize. This was an honour and completely unexpected.

custos You have always been drawing, also during the Estonian period. What were these drawings like? And what are your drawings like now?

MonaOates Well, most of these drawings were realistic in depiction. I utilised this time to learn technical skill and to sharpen my eyes for observations. Now most of my drawings are like what you see on my canvases. However, I find it very important to do detailed studies of objects so that I can break free from this reality in my actual artwork. Often though I will jet something down just to hold that thought and not to forget the vision. Then I will work towards more detail.

custos Apparently you are an analyst type of person. Is it why you have studied psychology at university? Do these studies have an impact on your art and thinking?

MonaOates I am very analytical and always strive for betterment. This characteristic gives me also a hard time finishing a painting as I am struggling towards the ideal painting. I also analyse whatever surrounds me with much thought and many tell me that I am too concerned about something immutable or peripheral. However, these things bother me. Of course this thought process goes into large detail in my work. I have a difficult time to just make a painting without any contextual background or reasoning. I am always on the search to find a true rational on why I am creating; hence there are many times where I criticise myself for actually making art if I have no direct reason.

FcoGoya The Surrealism was an art movement, as we all know, which was gestated by André Breton long time ago - almost a century ago, to be exact. What is Surrealism for you, and what is the incidence it may have on the art of our time? What is your opinion about the Infrarealist movement?

MonaOates Well, to be quite honest, I have never heard about the Infrarealist movement. However, of what I could find it seems to me very much a Latin American take on Dadaism and unconscious expression in order to fight the oppressive standards in Mexico back in the seventies. I also found something about the artist Stanislaw Kors. In fact his web domain is infrarealism.com. He describes his work, I quote: as INFRA-REALISM - below, or underlying, as opposed to going beyond what is generally accepted as being realistic. In the works of Stanislaw Kors we see the very essence of life. There is a feeling of transcending the very laws of science and nature, to a point when we are all part of the very fabric of the universe, both organic and inorganic. Man and beast, fire and rock, irrevocably bound together. Regarding this notion I relate to the idea of realism beyond the visible reality. Are you asking about Surrealism because my work is ordered in that category? I must admit I categorise it as such since many people associate my work as such. However, the categorisation is not quite correct, as no direct movement from the past can be associated with contemporary artwork; hence I put my art under Surrealist, which is a better description since it is not directly surreal but edges on some of its ideals. For example my work is derived from past experiences and emotions. However, I use a different thought process in the creation. I do not simply create imagery that moves from the unconscious desires to the surface but I am very systematic and plan my work, not only visually but also contextually. Are we looking inward - to the deepest probing of the electron microscope, or outward, to the furthest galaxy?

FcoGoya Your paintings seem to be fraught with deep significance. Could you describe the psychological content you are trying to express in your work?

MonaOates Indeed, I am intending to load my work with emotional expression and association, which leads to the abstract biomorphic depictions since emotions have no true form or colour. Nevertheless, I am aware that motion, form and colour can trigger certain associations. Additionally, I feel that emotional expression creates stronger interest in the viewer than imagery that is simply form and colour, such as Piet Mondrian's work. He wanted to find the essence of all things and eradicated all emotion to flatten his artwork. Humans seek a point of emotional reference to be able to associate and empathise with the encounter. This is one of the few connections that I can bridge towards the two-dimensional plain, that restricts the viewer to take part in this extraordinary world.

custos Being a student rep and an international mentor suggest you have an ability to work with people. Do you wish to use this gift in some way?

MonaOates I want to make a difference. I wish to have an impact on people or society. My strong expectations of me and my art may block my ways in times but this is what keeps me going. I hope in the future to have something that brings people together to learn and to be active in their immediate circles. I had a few ideas for the future but I feel I need to learn more, experience more and understand those thoughts until I am qualified to pursue them. I hope to go back to school in the near future. I truly miss the academic exchange and environment, though at the same time I need something that keeps me physically involved. To work with my hands and body is important to me.

custos Do you have an intention to turn back to what you have left behind? I think about the would-be mentor, exhibitions, friends, family...

MonaOates I feel that my life works very much in abrupt chapters. So there is no intention to go back of where I came from. I never left anything behind. I feel this idea has a negative inclination. These are some of the things that I try to address in my work. The issue of identifying one's self with the past and the future ideas. However, I believe that all this are different individuals and not so much one. It is tough to believe that there is one personality if we are ever evolving - how can you say that you are this because in the near future you are not. Identity and the idea of a self is, for me at least, difficult to understand as there are many facets to a material body, as it is the connection to the world while the self is often rejecting the body though it is an apparition of the body.