Heather Monks "Mammary Glands"

Heather Monks "Mammary Glands" 2024

Digital Photography
Dimensions: 20 x 30 inches
Edition 1 of 5
Signed on verso 

Heather Monks is a Fine Art Photographer whose work examines the tension between preservation and destruction through photographing flowers frozen in ice. By suspending floral elements in water and photographing the results, she explores our instinct to hold on to the beauty; and the paradox embedded in that impulse. By suspending a flower in water and subsequent ice, time is taken out of the equation. It is changed, but its beauty is saved. It will not wilt and it will not drop petals, however it is still destroyed. The still living cells are pierced by ice crystals and killed. Each image captures a delayed death, abstracting and preserving what cannot ultimately be saved.

Rooted in experimentation and chance, her process began during her studies at Columbia College Chicago, where a professor's challenge and a forgotten bouquet in a freezer revealed a new direction. She grows most of her flowers in her own garden, making the work deeply personal and seasonal. Her photographs have been exhibited in New York City galleries such as C+C Gallery, RIVAA, and MvVo Ad Art show. She holds a BA in Commercial Photography from Columbia College Chicago and is currently based in Vermont.