Link: http://nathanmonkart.com/

When you step into Nathan Monk’s garage, you get the feeling like you are standing in the middle of a constant state of chaos. Either that or you are looking into someone’s mind and experiencing a salvage yard of ideas and possibilities.

Nathan Monk shows off and explains some of the uses for things in his garage studio (Photo by Kim Brown).

Scrap wood lies piled up. Plastic bins and cardboard boxes speckle the floor. A makeshift plexiglass bin is filled with packing peanuts. Old frames look like accent pieces.

When you step into Monk’s studio, the stockpile of things is nothing out of the ordinary for a typical aged garage that isn’t solely used to store a vehicle.

But then you look closer, and you notice the stickers. On the wall you get a glimpse of an octopus-like creature spray painted on the wall with tentacles dripping down. You see pictures glued here and there, there is a collection of paint brushes and spray paint cans, surrounded by paint and colors of various kinds. It’s like turning on the special features portion of a movie and getting a glimpse into all the extra elements that go into his artwork and you can feel the creative process at work.

One of the cabinets in his studio (Photo by Kim Brown).

“It’s kind of amazing to go from being out in your studio making art to having people out in your studio asking about your art,” he said.

You see, the piles of clutter and materials that would be thrown away by many is seen as potential by Monk. His specialty as an artist lies in mixed media and found objects. Sometimes his canvas is a piece of wood or a closet door. Sometimes it is an object he stumbled upon at a thrift shop like 8-track tapes, for example, that went into a piece now on display at Indy Hostel. Titled “ I Like My Music Well Done,” the piece had Monk make two 8-track tapes look like toast coming out of a toaster that is plugged into a speaker.

"I Like My Music Well Done," Variable Size, 2009 (8 Track Tapes, Spraypaint, Shellac, Paper, Toaster, Wood Shelf, Speaker) (Photo courtesy of Nathan Monk).

“When I find these objects, I look at how they fit together and how they look on the wall. That’s where my short attention span comes in to use. I have to constantly work with different things. I don’t want to stay in one form.”

What appears on the surface as an eco-friendly way of recycling materials, it did not start out that way.

“When I first started doing this, it wasn’t that I wanted to be environmentally conscious and green. We lived in an old house in Danville. My mother collects antiques and plates. Dad is a pack rat. I would tease him about the state of his garage, but now I’ve taken up that trait. I like to make use of things. Working with found objects is challenging. When working with a wide amount of material it takes effort to make your work recognizable.”

Nathan Monk surrounded by potential (Photo by Kim Brown)

But now, using things like reclaimed wood or packing supplies is a common practice for his frugal way of thinking. Peer into his kitchen and you see a paper-making kit set up with paper in various stages of production.

“I have all of these old books that I cut out the pictures. What do I do with these old books? I’m trying to be less wasteful these days.”

Different factors go into the construction of a piece. Depending on what material you use for a canvas, you will get different effects along with textures. For Monk, it has been a simple procedure of trial and error. And much of what he creates, he creates simply for what it is. There is no plan or mapped out procedure. For him if a piece works, it works. If it does not, he moves on.

"Blame It On The Compact Disc," 12 x 6.5, 2009 (Cassette Tapes, Cassette Tape Holder, Wood, Glue, Spraypaint, Shellac)(Photo courtesy of Nathan Monk).

“For my collage work, I use wood glue, a lot of wood glue. I am really messy with it, too, because of its texture to the paper. I use shellac for style. I can either use a thin coat and it warms up the painting, or I can really cake it on and it turns completely brown.”

The result is something that sometimes looks as if it came from another planet while others look as if it was expelled from an alternate reality, but every one of his works is an extension of himself. Monk’s pieces can reflect a certain degree of urbanization coming from a fondness for the city and the buildings towering over him, when he would drive into the city and see the Indianapolis skyline from the west. Others deal with a fixation and desire to draw certain elements like his quest for the perfect circle or fascination with tentacles, going back to the octopus on the garage wall, which is a creature that Monk calls a Molaropus. In consists of a molar tooth with tentacles coming out of the roots, designed based on a phobia of losing or breaking his teeth.

The Molaropus creature that Monk painted on the wall in his studio (Photo by Kim Brown).

“I started drawing tentacles at school. We had to draw plants and I took the root of the plant and made them look like tentacles. The usage of squids and octopi tentacles are really big in the design world. You find out that what you do that is original catches on and you have to move on. I was going to stop doing the tentacles, but I realized that I was putting my own spin on it.”

It was the same with bubble wrap. While working for Michaels, he became fascinated with bubble wrap that evolved into using it as a dripping, honeycomb effect.

“One day I was watching HG TV and one of the home makeover shows used bubble wrap as a wall accentuation. A part of me died thinking that what I was doing was one of a kind and original. So now I just focus on coming up with new things and new ways of using those things.”

All of this stemmed from his experience in school, attending the Herron School of Art and Design for several years before dropping out of school and taking a hiatus from art when he found out his wife was pregnant with his son, Jonathan. While he was in school, he was not really concentrating on what he had to do, but realizing what he didn’t want to do.

Monk started out as a photography major and was immediately drawn to taking photos of the mundane: old door knobs, rusty items, things that people would walk by without noticing.

His Michael’s co-worker convinced him to change his major from photography to sculpture. But once he dug deeper into his major, the more he realized the aspects that did not please him, and thus began what he calls his downward spiral at Herron.

“I didn’t take things seriously. My friend and I would get in trouble because we would laugh at everything. There are so many artists out there that their work is not so aesthetically pleasing, so they have to justify it with some kind of deep concepts of the world and that to them justifies the ugly out.”

So what did Monk do? He decided that if you cannot be good in the true definition of an artist, then be different. In art school, there is a lot to be expected of you when all Monk wanted to do was simply paint and create.

"Monophonic Sound Destruction," 23.5 x 29.5, 2009 (Spraypaint, Shellac, Acrylic, Paper, Glue, Cassette Tapes, Carbon Fiber on Cardboard (Framed)) (Photo courtesy of Nathan Monk).

That perspective paid off. Just in the past year, it landed him a slot in 2009’s Oranje event, a showing at the Be Indypendent event at the Arts Garden, the Indy Hostel exhibit and a variety of other events around the city.

Not only that, but his paintings are actually moving as more and more people are showing interest in his work. It’s helped him go from working in what he described as a life-sucking warehouse job to working with this guy who does interior renovation with, you guessed it, recycled material and reclaimed wood.

"33 And A Third City," 22 x 19.5 x 4, 2009 (Wood, Acrylic, Fiberglass, Carbon Fiber, Spraypaint, Shellac, Glue, Record Player Cover)(Photo courtesy of Nathan Monk).

And even though Monk grows increasingly busy doing the very thing that he loves, and he transitions from painting to painting, his garage will continue to maintain that flux of chaos.

“I went back and thought, why do I use these materials,” he said. “It caters to myself as a person and my personality. You can see someone’s artwork and learn what kind of person they are like a gateway into their soul. You look at my paintings and see me.”