Jonathan Monaghan (American, b. 1986) makes prints, sculptures and computer-animated video that fuse ancient myth, science fiction and symbols of consumerism.,All of his videos, prints and sculptures originate in 3D software, using essentially the processes and techniques of mass-media entertainment. He pairs the seductive look of commercial media with absurd imagery and disjointed narratives, and says his work personifies underlying fears and anxieties about the future and technology.
Monaghan grew up in Rockaway Beach, Queens, and received a BFA from the New York Institute of Technology in 2008 and an MFA from the University of Maryland in 2011.,His 3D animation Your Uncertain Spirit was shown in “Open End”, a group exhibition of films selected from submissions to tank.tv.His 2013 work Mothership is cited as an example of early tokenized art.,
The 2016 video Disco Beast follows a psychedelic unicorn through empty commercial spaces, including an abandoned shopping mall and a luxury hotel lobby.It draws on the medieval image of a unicorn in captivity, which Monaghan treats as a metaphor for how comfortably people live with technology and an increasing security state.,The video gave its name to a solo exhibition at bitforms gallery in New York, which also included Police State Condo, a series of sculptural reliefs that mix 3D prints with flat images rendered in 3D software. Those works depict imagined luxury condos and corporate lobbies that include security checkpoints and surveillance cameras.His solo exhibition “After Fabergé” was held at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.,
In 2022 the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., presented his installation Move the Way You Want in its Intersections series. Digitally created imagery on adhesive canvas covered the walls of the former Dining Room, overlaying Gothic and Baroque archways with beachscapes littered with bike shares, abandoned scooters and Pelotons. A video projection of a mythical horse walking on a beach ran alongside paintings of horses by Giorgio de Chirico and Théodore Géricault from the museum's collection.His work is in the collections of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Phillips Collection, and has been shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and at New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival.,
