Kalliopi Monoyios: Patterns of Consumption

Littleton Museum

6028 S. Gallup Street, Littleton, CO 80120

April 1-June 26, 2022

Admission: free

Review by Danielle Cunningham

If garbage dumps were magically scrubbed clean, organized by color and material type, and arranged in aesthetically pleasing formations, artist Kalliopi Monoyios would have serious competition for a considerable percentage of her art practice. Instead, the global consumption and undervaluing of plastic leaves the artist with a cornucopia of cast aside materials to harvest including single-use plastic, cords, and snack packaging.

An installation view of Kalliopi Monoyios’ exhibition *Patterns of Consumption* at the Littleton Museum. Image by *DARIA*.

She converts these materials into new states of being as art materials, quilt-like wall hangings, sculptures, and three-dimensional framed works ranging from minimalist to maximalist styles that are nearly unrecognizable from their original forms. Sometimes though, a logo is visible, reminding the viewer of their own hand in the problematic accumulation of trash and also that the lives of consumable products can be extended, re-valued, and transformed with a little ingenuity.

Kalliopi Monoyios, *Drops in the Ocean*, 2020, quilted single-use plastic, polyester lining, and polyester thread. Image by *DARIA*.

In addition to reincarnating these throw-away materials, Monoyios makes plastic wrappers appear softer and fabric-like in her large work Drops in the Ocean. She applies quilting techniques and embroidery to the plastic, which inserts these processes into the history of fine art despite their past designation as “women’s work” or low art. In this way, she mutually elevates traditional processes and discarded plastics, emphasizing the value of both the past and the present.

A detail view of Kalliopi Monoyios’ *Drops in the Ocean*, 2020, quilted single-use plastic, polyester lining, and polyester thread. Image by *DARIA*.

Drops in the Ocean is a mostly monochromatic blue work, perhaps named for its hue as much as for the fact that much discarded plastic ends up in the ocean. It features several overlapping compositions of concentric circles spread horizontally, which surround a large, central rectangular patch. When viewing the work, the circular sections are the most prominent areas because of their size in comparison to the rectangular section, drawing attention to their resemblance to targets, a seeming metaphor for the need to focus on the world’s plastic pollution.

Kalliopi Monoyios, *Four Lines*, 2022, cane, reed, and single-use plastic from four snack lines. Image by *DARIA*.

Monoyios’ sculptural works bring a visually delicate yet physically sturdy feeling to the exhibition. Particularly her work Four Lines, made from cane, reed, and single-use plastic “snack lines,” and is comprised of swooping, twirling, spherical bits of brightly colored material that looks flimsy with its thin dimensionality. At the same time, the work draws attention to the flexibility of consumer packaging with both its versatile appearance and its material malleability.

A detail view of Kalliopi Monoyios’ *Four Lines*, 2022, cane, reed, and single-use plastic from four snack lines. Image by *DARIA*.

Plastic is abundant, making it a reliable resource for sculpture and other art mediums. The artist has shaped the materials in this work in a manner that mirrors one of plastic’s many uses as a coating for various household cables and cords, making technology in the home possible. These contours also hearken to the artist’s training as a science illustrator, revealing that for Monoyios, drawing never dies even when it has become sculpture. [1]

Kalliopi Monoyios, *Seduction*, 2019, PTFE (Teflon) dental floss and “treeless” polypropylene paper. Image by *DARIA*.

Though much of the work in this exhibition demonstrates abundance, especially the artist’s preference for multi-colored product wrapping, the artist also reveals a clear fondness for simplicity. In her white work made from dental floss on “treeless” propylene paper titled Seduction, Monoyios again shows her propensity for linework and embroidery. In it, she creates a dense, zig-zagging pattern of stitches that move from the bottom to the top of the surface, mesmerizing the gaze.

With this repetition, it is easy to reflect on the daily consumption of the contents held by plastic packaging and the subsequent rejection of that packaging. The artist especially highlights dental floss as a material loaded with content, since for most it becomes abject once it leaves our mouths and we thoughtlessly discard it into the waste bin. For the artist though, this rejected substance becomes a catalyst for the purposeful act of creation, and, eventually, a revitalized material she turns into a meditative pattern.

Kalliopi Monoyios, *abc*, 2022, lacquer tray, gum base, and acrylic letters. Image by *DARIA*.

Then there is her playful use of an easily forgotten material that leaves residue on walkable urban surfaces everywhere: gum. The artwork abc is playful, as one might expect from a work about gum, with the centered and recessed letters “abc” written neatly in a grade-school style font surrounded by white, yellow, and blue bits of gum. Unlike Monoyios’ other works in which she uses repurposed materials, she doesn’t use already-chewed gum, though a disturbing message about the product emerges, nonetheless.

In the decades since its invention, plastic has invaded most sectors of our lives, conquering even our internal bodies in the allegedly safe form of gum. As the artist points out, “food-grade polymers, waxes, and softeners” have replaced the consumables that once came from the gum tree in what is effectively chewable petroleum. [2]

Kalliopi Monoyios, *Year of Plastic, Family of Four*, 2021, single-use plastic and polyester thread. Image by *DARIA*.

Considering climate change and the obvious dangers of pollution, Monoyios places found-object art, which was once novel and mostly apolitical, in a thoughtful, emotional, highly relevant political realm. Plus, she shows that art materials don’t have to be traditional paint and marble, but can be anything at hand. Wealthy artists need not be the only artists thriving today, and class is obsolete.

Her work is not entirely encouraging, though. Monoyios may beautify trash, putting it on an art pedestal, but she also articulates a dire message. Although what we throw away today can provide us with a pleasing sight tomorrow, filled with surprising shapes and brilliant colors, it may be better to simply stop throwing so much of it away.

Danielle Cunningham is an artist, scholar, and independent curator. She writes about science fiction, gender, sexuality, and disability, with an emphasis on mental illness. The co-founder of chant cooperative, an artist co-op, she holds a master’s degree in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Denver.

[1] From the artist’s website: https://www.kalliopimonoyios.com/home/science-illustration-2001-2015.

[2] From the exhibition’s artwork description.