Monika Merva

Origins of Emotions

February 5–March 1, 2015

Origins of Emotions is a series by photographer Monika Merva that presents the quiet moments of family life, bringing into focus small details that often evoke memories heavy with emotion. Each deliberately composed color image exists as a physical record of an instance now past, as the artist hopes to push viewers towards a more mindful observation of the present and our place within the world around us.

"In contemplating this series, I am confronted with the uneasy sense that this body of work is as much about beginnings as it is about endings, life and death. It is about securing my own memories and capturing an image of the people and moments that have given shape to my life. Equally, it is about the awareness of how an image marks the last vestige of that moment in time: a memory captured and a moment disintegrated at the same utterance."

Monika Merva received her BA in philosophy from Northeastern University and completed her MFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design. Her photographs have been featured in The New Yorker and New York Times Magazine, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Brooklyn Museum, George Eastman House, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Johnson & Johnson Corporate Art Collection. Kehrer Verlag published her first monograph, The City of Children, in May 2011. This is her first exhibition of Origins of Emotions in the United States. Merva currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.