My life and art operate as one with each being the inspiration for the other. The ultimate goal of my art is that it becomes a Gesamtkunstwerk - work of many disciplines.
Having been educated in the Bauhaus Tradition with its extreme rules I discovered my own need to express the freedom of living and working in different cultures. This continues to be an ongoing adventure of discovery. I left what was East Germany at the time, worked in Europe and the US, and continue the adventure as an ongoing discovery of my life.
My art is a journal of this journey, which combines my cultural background with themes of restriction and liberation. In this process I explore new materials and techniques to express the experience of being a free person. This freedom is mirrored through my art by utilizing an unlimited combination of techniques and materials in the same way that our lives are a combination of different influences. In addition, I do incorporate sometimes sound, movement, light, projections and video within the work as an essential ingredient to complete my expression.
Bio
Monika Kaden grew up in the former East Germany, where she was trained with a strict classical arts education at the University of Art & Design "Burg Giebischenstein in Halle/Saale. In 1988, one year before the Berlin Wall came down, she escaped to The Netherlands and studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Art & Design in Amsterdam - Holland and found her way to the U.S. Upon arrival, she studied at Alfred University, NY, where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree. Monika Kaden works mostly as an artist and teacher out of New Mexico and sometimes Germany.
Monika's website
