Today we’d like to introduce you to Monica Cioppettini. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Monica Cioppettini (b. 1994, United States) received a B.F.A. in fine art from Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey in 2017, and an M.F.A. in painting in 2020 from The Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA.
She has participated in numerous groups and exhibitions in New York and Georgia. Cioppettini is a multidisciplinary artist whose work centers around used jewelry and found objects, collected from local thrift shops and flea markets with an interest to give a second life to something that was once so personal and close to a stranger.
Perhaps it’s the never-ending cycle of production and consumption that floods our world with rejected objects that fuel her mania for collecting and obsession with other people’s stuff. Using accessories as examples of identity, each gold necklace or pearl earring has a story and sentiment attached to it.
But then it was thrown away or cast aside, forgotten in piles of dirt and dust in thrift shops waiting to be found.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like everything in life, there will always be road bumps.
As an artist, you always are faced with questions like, why do I make what I make? Why should people care about what I make? And where does my artwork fit into the art world?
So learning to find a creative voice and content that reflects that can be challenging, but I find by making artwork, and making a lot of artwork those questions work themselves out.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My art is amassed from my large collection of accessories; mainly costume jewelry. The work ranges from works on panels, accumulations, and installations. My work is a persistent journey where I am scavenging flea markets, exploring second-hand shops, reluctantly entering homes of hoarders, but I must not hesitate in search of thrown-away and lost jewelry.
These expensive representations of themselves, remnants of other’s lives just thrown out marked by time, rusty, and broken I dig through my treasure chest optimistically searching- each piece used, abused, and cast aside, traces of their nameless wearers, symbols of who they are and who they were, forgotten by them but waiting for me in a heaping pile of dust and cheap imitations.
Perhaps it’s the never-ending cycle of production and consumption that floods our world with rejected objects that fuel my mania for collecting and my obsession with other people’s stuff. For years, I have rummaged through these shops to accumulate these relinquished materials fascinated by their real or reinvented narratives.
I love endless combing through bundles of bangles, detangling strands of silver beads, separating the studs from the hoops, picking them up and putting them down, gluing them down, gluing them together, ripping them apart, bending wires, snipping posts, and de-linking chain, allowing them to work together, allowing them to stand alone, finding construction in their deconstruction.
I make jewelry and mass it together, the jewelry is no longer activated by being worn but rather it’s activated by each piece’s ontological past coming together and narrating its future.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Taking risks is a fundamental part of being an artist, by taking a chance and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you are developing a growth mindset.
Growth towards new ideas and techniques in your practice— or growth in the sense of eliminating certain ideas or techniques.
Sometimes risks don’t always work out, but that is the beauty of art, you can always take away, paint over, or completely cover up something that doesn’t work out, and you the artist will be the only one that will ever know what was there in the first place.
Pricing:
- Small artworks range anywhere from $90-600
- Large artworks are $1000 and up
Contact Info:
- Email: mcioppettini@gmail.com
- Website: monicacioppettini.com
- Instagram: @monica.ciop.studio
