Bascha Mon. Our World Is Not Stable. Can We Flourish In Such Feverish Times?
February 28, 2020. Carbon Pencil, Gouache on Arches paper, 12 × 16 in.
The Very Colorful Bascha Mon at 92
This is how New Jersey painter Bascha Mon, who has just turned 92, has described her painting process. The music she listens to is invariably that of Olivier Messiaen, in particular Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus, performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. She adds: “Messiaen had synesthesia, and I’m not sure how that has linked to my subconscious.” (Synesthesia, for those not acquainted with this way of perceiving the world, can be described as “sensory crossovers,” meaning that one type of sensory perception stimulates others.)
A role model for all artists, Mon has persevered her whole life in making art, against all odds (and there have been many). She has just had her first New York City one-person exhibition in fifty years. Announced as “A Celebratory Retrospective of an Artist’s Life and Journey of Dreaming, Perseverance, Activism, & Unconscious Expression,” and on view from September 18 to October 27, 2024, her exuberant retrospective at the Brooklyn gallery Tappeto Volante showcased five decades of Mon’s paintings, ranging from the 1970s and ‘80s, when she first achieved recognition, to today.
The exhibition introduced me to Mon’s early paintings. I’d first became acquainted with her work through social media; she and I had mutual friends, and we became Facebook friends. Serious health issues had prevented her from going the usual New York City gallery route. Indeed, Paola Gallio, the exhibition curator and gallery co-founder, describes the social media phase of Mon’s career as “dissolving the physical isolation that had once defined her situation.” Mon had the foresight to use virtual reality to make her work even more widely known. Gallio emphasizes that “Mon’s modest basement studio became a metaphor for boundless creative space,” where the constraints of physical isolation were replaced by the limitless possibilities of virtual engagement.
The earliest work in the recent show was Reverberations, 1978.
Reverberations, 1978, Oil on Homacote, 72” × 48”
I love the dream-like quality of the painting and was drawn to the poetry and musicality of her varied and subtle brushstrokes. The title, Reverberations, evokes both nature and music, and it could represent the ocean, the sky, or a vision of how music sounds.
Others of her earlier works are equally compelling:
A Shopper’s Guide to Prince Street, 1978, Oil on Homasote 48 x 72 in.
The whimsical title of this early painting was no doubt inspired by the evolution of New York’s Soho from a neighborhood of inexpensive artists’ lofts to a downtown shopping mecca. It reminds me a bit of the works of Paul Klee.
In Memory (RECOLLECTIONS SERIES), 1978-81. Oil on Homasote, 48 × 48 in.
The jewel-like glinting fragments comprising In Memory move in infinite space. The synesthetic aspects of it remind me of form constants used by synesthetes identified by experimental psychologist Heinrich Klüver (1897–1979). Zigzags, repeated circles, flecks, and droplets swirl around. The multiple layers and forms within forms are also common to synesthetic artists.
Below you can see the chart drawn up by Klüver showing repeated images he observed when testing synesthetic artists who listened to music while drawing.
Heinrich Klüver, “Form Constants,” reproduced in Richard Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, M.I.T. Press, 1998.
The first exhibition of Mon’s work that I saw in person was “The New Land” at the Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, N.J. in October 2019. I was intrigued and moved by this monumental work, consisting of numerous small pieces, and subsequently wrote about it:
The very notion of a “New Land,” comprising more than 284 individual paintings, and constituting an unorthodox “storyline,” moving along, in itself sounded to me like the work of a synesthetic artist. Then, when I heard that Bascha Mon was inspired by the music of the synesthetic composer Olivier Messiaen, I felt certain of it. I say this as someone who has long been fascinated by the work of synesthetes.
However, upon questioning the artist, she said that she does not have actual synesthetic perceptions. That is, she does not hear color, see shapes or colors relating to emotions, or visualize days of the week, months of the year, etc. in any kind of continuum. I concluded that she is not synesthetic in the way Hockney, Burchfield, Carol Steen, or Marcia Smilack are.
She does have a kind of kinesthesia, though, somewhat like that of dancers. When she hears the music, she feels it go through her and inspire her to paint certain shapes, lines, and colors.
“New Land” is a journey into the unknown, filled with original thoughts and emotions. It consists of both “representational” and “abstract” pictures, placed alongside each other to tell a story of exploration, hope, disappointment, happiness, and pain.
“New Land” shares with its synesthetic relatives a sense of newness, wonder, exploration, and movement that is at once intriguing, fun, and revelatory.
Some images of the artist in front of her installation The New Land.
Contemporary Institute for Art. Bedminster, N.J. October 2019.
A few closer-up images from The New Land
The New Land was and is prescient, dealing as it does with immigration and emigration—the related problems, fears, hopes, and joys, most of which are imaginary, although they ring very close to the truth. The artist worked on these small gouache paintings for about three years, from 2015 to 2018. She has said that in the beginning her work made her think of Jacob Lawrence and “Migration.” But for her, they were more about herself than immigrants; she was finding her own new land.
The remarkable visionary journey she took during those three years included another aspect: she asked other artists to make flags for the new land. The response was enormous, and a most unusual collaboration was added to the initial project.
Dee Shapiro. Goldan Mean. (“Flag” for The New Land) Ink/painted Arches paper, 8” x 8.”
MJ Bono. New Land for All. (Flag for the New Land). Digital – ink on Hiromi paper, 8.5” x 11.”
In the years since completing The New Land, Mon has continued to work small, with gouache, carbon pencil, and pencil on paper. Color continues to be her driving force, and her sense of wonderment never ceases.
Below are a few paintings from the 2020s:
When Life Is A Scramble, This May Be What You Get, Sunday, June 12, 2022, Carbon Pencil, gouache on Arches Paper 12” × 16”
April Drenched Us But Georgia Seemed Present, Saturday, April 29, 2023.
Carbon pencil, gouache on Arches paper, 16” × 12”.
The amazing Bascha wrote to me:
“I did not want to make new work to post during my show. I wanted all the focus on my show. I will be 92 on Sunday and would like to give myself the gift of painting again but not sure it will happen.”
However, on Nov. 3, her 92nd birthday, she posted several photos on Facebook, saying:
Bascha Mon, from her November 3, 2024, Facebook post.
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Born on November 3, 1932, in Newark NJ, Bascha Mon studied in New Jersey under the mentorship of Adolf Konrad and later at the Art Students League in New York where she found inspiration in Wassily Kandinsky, particularly his exploration of the relationship between color and music. She first gained recognition in the 1970s and ‘80s, with numerous exhibitions and critical acclaim. However, her trajectory was interrupted by health challenges that led to a long period of seclusion. In the late 1980s, Mon suffered a nerve injury that temporarily limited her ability to paint with her dominant hand. Temporarily drawing with her left hand, she transitioned to canvas. Social media played a crucial role in Mon’s later career. Engaging in rich conversations with other painters on platforms like Facebook, she broadened her artistic references and developed new approaches to her practice. Her recent exhibition at Tappeto Volante was her first one-person retrospective in New York City in fifty years.
Greta Berman is Art Editor of Persimmon Tree. She received a B.A. from Antioch College, an M.A. from the University of Stockholm, and a Ph.D. from Columbia. She has recently retired from her position as Professor of Art History at Juilliard, where she taught for 46 years. In addition to writing a monthly column, “Focus on Art,” for the Juilliard Journal, she co-curated and co-edited Synesthesia: Art and the Mind with Carol Steen, at the McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario in 2008. She and Steen also published a chapter titled “Synesthesia and the Artistic Process” for the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia (Oxford University Press 2013). She has published numerous articles, as well as lectured on synesthesia, and other subjects.
Thank you!
I like her Goldan Mean, and A Shopper’s Guide to Prince Street very much, as something found in the dream. Her New Land series are very amazing collection.
Yes, they are. Thanks for noticing and commenting, Ninghui!
Love the painting and her spirit! She deserves the press!!! Thanks you for introducing us.