Lucas Monaco
Hello my Name is...
Lucas Monaco
I was born in....
New York, New York
I currently live in....
Brooklyn, New York
It all started when....
I was born.
Not to sound cheesy – but it started when I was visiting Paris, and was sketching at the Place de La Concorde. I was trying to draw the space, when all of a sudden I started looking at the tourist map I had on me, and started using it as an additional source for my drawing. I then went on to do a series on all the major Intersections in Paris. Immediately I started thinking of cartographers and urban planners as artists: creators not just of drawings, but creators of people’s lives.
My work is...
It’s about a few things at least. It’s about art, and it’s also about the world around us, for lack of a better expression.
My work explores the relationship between idea and execution/planning and development/creativity and functionality/random and rational. I am interested in how and why things happen, and what that means for the rest of us. The intersection of Art and Life is key.
I find the act of creating something to be a window into everything that came before it. Influences are everywhere; things ruminate and fester inside our heads, things rot or rise to the surface. To some degree there is no rhyme or reason within this process. It simply happens. Being that this is the area an artist occupies most of the time – this cycle of seeking, thinking, creating, re-thinking, I find it an endless source of fascination.
As well the work reflects the world around it. In my work there are things to see- things to be recognized, things to identify with. It always contains some element of the tangible and obvious. It’s important to me to have that accessibility.
My ideal work environment...
Light, Music, Air, Space
Work Work Work. Wishing there was more time for reading, looking etc.
I'm influenced by...
Anyone who has accomplished something. Any philosophy that attempts to take on the big picture. I’ll read any biography, obituary, story or retrospective on anyone who’s gone from one place to another; who’s overcome great odds, who’s had great influence, who’s arrived somewhere new, intellectually or otherwise. Maybe it’s the drama of the epic story, maybe it’s the struggle against mortality, or maybe it’s the kernel of reality- getting a partial glimpse into why the world is the way it is. This is part of why I read a lot about urban design, development, and planning, and why my work is obsessed with complex systems. I see the built environment as one example of a mind-bogglingly large and complicated entity that has been shaped by so many people and so many ideas, laws and flukes. Trying to understand a little bit of it at a time is one goal, and shedding some light on it is another.
Much of the world as we see and experience it is the product of someone’s idea or whim or the by-product of a number of phenomena- man-made other otherwise. Reading a biography of one of the major historical players helps illuminate the reasons behind the end product or the ideas behind the ideas. This is the stuff that makes my experience of the world a rich experience.
Pen and paper, with a side of watercolor
If you were to go through my trash you might find...
Nothing interesting. I’m a bit of a pack rat.
The one item to be buried with me...
Nothing. I’ll have much bigger things to worry about than what to grab off the side table on my way out…
Something I value that others might discard...
A chestnut that was given to me. That kind of thing…
view more work by Lucas Monaco here
