About
Monkman is an award winning figurative artist who came to prominence in the late 90s with his 'domestic doodles' which tracked his everyday life as a teacher, young father and consumer of movies in the form of fields of automatic drawing and painting. Since winning the BP Portrait Award in 2009 with a depiction of his 12 year old daughter as ‘The Changeling’ , Monkman has been interested in how appearances can be captured, revealing more complex notions of identity. To expand on this concept, a series of etherial paintings based on his autistic nephew provided a challenge to how such an ungraspable internal life can be depicted.
Context and art history have been important to Monkman's painting. In the series 'Face Value', portraits of school age children from UK Private and State schools have been exhibited together to explore how identities of 'youth' can be viewed equally.
Concepts of mind, perception and sensation have informed much of Monkman's experimentation in a range of media. Automatic mono-prints and mark-making provide a surface to allow features to emerge. A carefully observed portrait may be layered with further marks, doodles, erasures and glazes creating a dialogue between the form and meaning.
As a child Monkman was influenced and liberated by punk growing up in Co. Durham and along with regular visits to his mother's hometown Aarhus, Denmark, he was explosed to the freedom of Scandinavian expression and abstraction. The CoBrA group of artists such as Asger Jorn and Karl Appel have recently been a reference in more abstract spontaneous work. Throughout his career Monkman has run numerous Art trips to New York, LA and London absorbing influences from the YBAs in the early 90s to more current trends in contemporary art informing practice. An interest in the wide variety of contemporary and historical art has provided a diverse mixing pot to draw from when discovering his own creative direction with a first exhibition in 1996 his journey continues.
Education
Monkman was born in Gloucester and brought up in County Durham and has practiced and taught Art for 37 years. He was Director of Art at Charterhouse from 2004 - 2024 and is a member of the Charterhouse Art Network and CBPP (Contemporary British Portrait Painters)
Over the years Monkman has worked in Surrey, Lancashire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and currently lives and works as a full time artist in York, North Yorkshire UK.
1992-4 MA Art and Design, University College London
1986–7 Art and Design PGCE John Moores Liverpool
1982-5 BA (hons) Visual Arts University of Lancaster
Awards
2021 Ruth Borchard Portrait Award – Highly Commended – Longlist (also 2017 shortlist exhibition)
2013 Threadneedle Prize shortlist exhibition, Mall Galleries,London(& 2008, 2009)
2010 Celeste Award, video installation work, Dependency, 53rd Venice Biennale
2009 BP Portrait Award National Portrait Gallery 1st prize (& 1999, 2001, 2003)
2007 Jerwood Drawing Prize shortlist exhibition, Jerwood space, London.
2001 Drawing Prize, Eastern Open, Kings Lynn Arts Centre, King Lynn
2000 Most Popular in Show, It’s Your Turn, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
1999, 1995, 1994 1st prize PEG Regional Open Peterborough Museum, UK
1996 2nd Prize, national photographic competition, Lauderdale House, London
Solo exhibitions
2024 . George Mallory Godalming Museum , Surrey UK
2024. George Mallory 100 years anniversary. Charterhouse , UK
2019 Head Girl Head Boy, Arts Fund Space, Lightbox, Woking, UK
2018 Reinvention; work from the Slade summer school,Charterhouse, UK
2015 Mallory Portraits, Library, Charterhouse UK
2013 Changeling; new work Cadogan Contemporary, London, UK
2009 Paintings, Drawings animations, Winchester College Angelus Gallery., UK
2008 Changing Face, Watts Gallery Compton, Surrey, UK
2008 Changing Face 2, Wellington College UK
2008 New work, Lewis Elton Gallery University of Surrey UK
2006 Automatic Drawings, Studio Charterhouse, UK
2004 Private State, Studio Charterhouse, Surrey, UK
2003 Face Value, Wrenn portrait project, GALLERY@ wrenn Northants, UK
2002 Face Value, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, UK
2001 Channel Surfing King’s Lynn Arts Centre, UK
2001 Paintings and drawings Alsager Gallery Manchester Metropolitan Uni, UK
2000 Drawing on Time, Modern Art, Oxford, UK
1998 Domestic Doodles Sackville Gallery, W1 London, UK
1996 Between Painting and Photography, Bromham Mill, Bedford, UK
Group exhibitions
2024 Summer Show , Blacksmithshop gallery, N Yorkshire, UK
2024, CBPP exhibition The Department Store, Brixton, London
2022, DELTA GAMMA Contemporary Art, Academy, Saatchi Gallery, London
2022, CBPP exhibition The Department store, Brixton, London
2021, OCAS group show project space Bermondsey London
2021 Ruth Borchard Portrait Award, Longlist, online
2021 Portraits in Isolation, Old Fire Station, Oxford
2020 Perception with CBPP, Cass Arts space, Islington,London
2020 Portraits for National Health Service Heroes, Fitzrovia Chapel, London
2017 OCAS project space Bermondsy, London
2017 Ruth Borchard Portrait Prize, Kings Place London.
2017 Behind the Mask charity display National Portrait Gallery London
2016 Wells Contemporary International Open, Wells UK
2015 Let the Light In, Hay-on-Wye, philosophy and Music festival, uk
2015 OCAS group show, project space Bermondsey , London
2014 Gala mystery post cards and auction, National Portrait Gallery, London
2013 Threadneedle Prize, London (also 2009 and 2008)
2011 CHASE charity exhibition, RCA London
2011 Chelsea football club, Charity auction, UK
2011 XIV Interfebep Gallery Portreta, Bosnia Hercegovina
2011 Auction, Opera House Samara, Russia
2011 Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual show, Mall galleries
2010 Depentendency, sola della Certisa,Venice, 53rd Venice Biennale, Italy
2010 MUV festival, Florence, Italy
2010 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Show, Mall galleries, London
2010 Contemporary British Art, Millinery Works Gallery, London
2010 Uncanny likeness, OVADA , Oxford, UK
2009 Threadneadle Figurative Art Prize, Mall Galleries London
2009 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London with tour to Portsmouth
2008 Threadneadle Figurative Art Prize Mall Galleries London
2007 Jerwood Drawing Prize Jerwood Space, London with tour
2005 Singer Friedlander/ Sunday Times watercolour Competition, Mall, London
2005 Save a baby auction, Dorchester, London
2005 Charterhouse at Panter & Hall, Panter and Hall, Mayfair, London
2005 Ideal Home exhibition, Olympia, London
2004 Future Face, Science Museum, London
2004 London art Fair (Face Value Series), Islington Design Centre, London
2004 Home Ideal (installation) Hotbath Gallery, Bath, UK
2003 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery with tour to Aberdeen
2003 Singer Friedlander/Sunday Times water colour Mall Galleries London
2002 True Nature Phoenix Art Gallery, Brighton , UK
2002 Affordable Art fair, New York, USA
2002 Art on Paper, Royal College of Art London
2002 Art Crazy Nation (part of Alan Kane’s ‘To Let’ installation), MKG, Milton Keynes, UK
2002 Art Miami. Miami beach convention centre USA
2002 Glasgow Art Fair, Scotland
2002 Drawing on our Past, Angel Row Nottingham UK
2001 Eastern Open Kings Lynn Art Centre UK
2001 C21 Bank Side Gallery London
2001 5th Anniversary exhition: most successful artists, Will's Art Warehouse London
2001 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery with tour to Sheffield
2000 Drawings for All Gainsborough's House Sudbury UK
2000 Disaster! Gallery Fresh Greenwich London
2000 Its Your Turn Kettles Yard Cambridge UK
2000 Transfiguration Roadmenders Northampton UK
2000 The Castle Art Centre Wellingborough Northant. UK
1999 Proud Gallery Auction Charing Cross London
1999 Edingburgh Festival (Proud Gallery) Royal Common Wealth Institude
1999 Norwich Arts Centre photographic exhibition
1999 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, with tour
1998 Group show, Sackville Gallery, W1, London
1998 Summer exposure Proud Gallery Charing Cross London
1998 National Photographic exhibition Lauderdale House Highgate London
1998 Open Onsite Gallery Northampton UK
Collections
National Portrait Gallery (Julia Donaldson portrait)
Gallery Portreta, Bosnia Hercegovina
Joe Lewis collection. commission
George Weston collection family commission
Charterhouse School
Lancaster University
Interview with Rob Dunt for ArtTop10.com as part of artists in Lockdown