I’m Monica Silva. I take raw materials (paint, cloth, my own body, hints, dreams, wire, earth, time, gravity, tedious moments, graphite, paper, linoleum, to name a few) and shape the ones I choose into an artwork. Most often the result is a painting or a performance.

For example, an ongoing interest of mine is illuminating through art the human mysteries and unseen forces pervading medicine. I directed a full-length performance, Octopus Heart, diving into this topic, and my recent paintings are inspired by both my experience as a nurse and as a human body subject to sickness and death.

Snooping around the secret passageways that connect here to there and me to you, I’m looking for ways to bring more love into the world. Love, curiosity, and truthfulness.

Iris: medicinal beauty whose roots are rhizomes— horizontal, underground, tenacious.

Engine: converts energy into action. It does things.