Monique Luchetti

THORN, 2004, re-woven doll rugs and carpet, aprox. 8' x 4'THEN / NOW At The Phatory, Luchetti presented work using second-hand braided rugs and other floor coverings, which she pulled apart and rewove into artworks. As in cellular regeneration, Luchetti’s work metaphorically decodes the aesthetic blueprints implicit in these formerly utilitarian objects, liberating them from their domestic duty. This transformative process extends the labor of the original weavers who imbued their rugs with their visual aesthetics despite working within pragmatic and cultural confines. Or, as James Wagner wrote on his eponymous website: 

“Like so many of her contemporaries, male and female, Monique Luchetti delights in bringing what has been conventionally regarded as “women’s work” to the sacred precincts of the art gallery. In her current show at The Phatory, “RNA,” a practical domestic tradition has become almost completely transformed, far beyond the (considerable) labor involved in her physical alteration of (mostly) found materials. These “canvases” evolve into economically-constructed, powerful, abstract and timeless worlds.”