October 1 – November 5, 2011
Opening reception October 1, 2011, 7-9:30pm

Monica Vidal
Temple Hive
Downstairs Front BOX

Temple Hive is the second in Monica Vidal‘s series of large scale forms whose purpose is to distort the relationship between body and sculpture.  The first, Tumor Hive, represented the enormous emotional impact of an excised lump of cells gone amok.  Temple Hive is inspired by the idiosyncrasies of Vidal’s youth as they linger into hypothetical adulthood.  She was then, as she is now, obsessed with escape, for both body and mind.

Vidal explains, “When I was young we had gold-colored, polyester curtains in our dining room.  They had a dense, abstract pattern and if you stared at them for long enough you saw rows of crouched figures, the heads tucked down and their knees brought up.  At least, if I stared at them long enough, I did.  On weekends I spent my time in a homemade tent of blankets and dining room chairs, tucked away from my rowdy brothers. I liked my space, even if it was just the mini mental vacation provided by picking out the pattern in stippled sunlight through curtains.”

Temple Hive is meant for the act of isolating yourself from the world to contemplate pattern and texture.  It is an ode to sunlight and quilts and calico and brocade, all at once.  It was built from triangles into hexagons-like the cells of honeycombs– and as they spread they also collapse. Vidal created this space for herself and to share.

Monica Vidal received her BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art and a MFA from Tyler School of Art. She has exhibited in Houston, Austin and Dallas and had a residency at Art 342 in Fort Collins, Colorado. When not making drawings, paintings and sculptures in #10 at Winter Street Studios, she is the Registrar at the University Museum at Texas Southern. In the summer of 2012 she will be showing the series of Hives at the Lawrence Art Center, Kansas.