Portia munson biography of christopher

Portia Munson

b.

from Cooper Union in 1983. I was pretty dyslexic, so my way of succeeding or expressing myself was through art. She’s been doing so since her years in undergrad in the 80s at Cooper Union in New York City, where she first took a deep dive into her lifelong fascination with the color pink. Or is it the other way around, where you have an idea and then seek out those items?

I would say both things happen at the same time.

Munson has taught at the Yale School of Art, Vassar Collage, SUNY Purchase and NYU. Portia Munson is represented by PPOW Gallery in NYC. Her work is in numerous collections. It had to do with wanting to look at and being really fascinated with the ways that women are treated, how women are perceived in the culture, what kinds of things are marketed toward women; I just had a lot of things I wanted to say about that. 

It just seemed clear to me that I was a feminist artist.

Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY

Solo Exhibitions

2023
Pink Bedroom, Museum of Sex, New York, NY

2022
Bound Angel, P·P·O·W, New York, NY
Memento Mori, Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY
Portia Munson: Flood, The Newmark Gallery at Art Omi, Ghent, NY

2021
Memento Mori Mandalas, Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY

2019
Pink Projects, Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY
The Garden, Meridians, Art Basel, Miami, FL

2018
Her World/Her Room, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
Flood, Disjecta, Portland, OR

2017
The Garden, P·P·O·W, New York, NY
Earth Rites, NYU Langone Medical Center Gallery, New York, NY

2015
Little Suns, Hollow Bones, Cross Contemporary Art Gallery, Saugerties, NY
Dear Mother Nature, Mills Gallery, Central College, Pella, IA

2013
Reflecting Pool, P·P·O·W, New York, NY

2011
Color Forms, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA

2010
Portia Munson, Liebowitz Gallery, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA

2007
Green, P·P·O·W, New York, NY
Pink Project: Contained, Hemphill Gallery, Washington D.C.

2005
Flower Mandalas, P·P·O·W, New York, NY

1996
The Garden, Yoshii Gallery, New York, NY

1994
Paintings and Pink, Yoshii Gallery, New York, NY
Pink Project: Bedroom, Hotel, Art Awareness, Lexington, NY

1993
White Room, White Columns, New York, NY

Select Group Exhibitions

2024
Angelic Rebels, Company Gallery, New York, NY
Still Life!  Mourning, Meaning, Mending, 21c Museum, Bentonville, AR            
Plasticulture, SVA Chelsea Gallery, New York, NY            
Psychedelic Landscape, Beattie Powers Place, Catskill, NY          
Bound Rocks & Functional Women, Opus 40, Saugerties, NY
The Doll Show, Byrdcliffe, Woodstock, NY 
Twenty/20 Athens Cultural Center.
Understory, Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY

2023
Rituals of Devotion, McEvoy Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Finders Keepers, VSOP Projects, Greenport, NY
Kaatsbaan Festival, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Tivoli, NY
Noise for Now, YWCA, Kingston, NY

2022
Women’s Work, Lyndhurst Mansion, Tarrytown, NY
Artists Draw Their Studios, curated by Michelle Weinberg, Marymount Manhattan College, Hewitt Gallery of Art, New York, NY
Kaatsbaan Festival, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Tivoli, NY
A SENSE OF PLACE: Artists from the Woodstock Masters Series, Woodstock, NY

2021
Still, Life!

From a young age, I was a little bit rebellious against that, and was like, I don’t think this is quite right. 

Then the environmental aspect came with collecting plastic stuff, looking at it, and thinking about it. I’ve always had an environmental awareness and interest, but it seems like to be a conscious, thinking person in our world right now, you’d have environmental inclinations, given the state of things. 

What aspect of your impressive career are you proudest of? 

Rather than proud, I guess I would say I feel really fortunate to have been able to live my life as an artist.

Especially when I was first investigating it, there was less of it around, and it was very strongly associated with women. Dated, titled, signed, limited edition of 5.

About: “The Garden” (first exhibited at Yoshii Gallery, NYC, 1996), is an artificial garden one can enter, a room densely packed and layered with recycled manufactured items that represent/depict flowers and creatures found in gardens and associated with women.

1961, Beverly, MA, Lives and works in Catskill, NY

Education

1990
M.F.A. While I was collecting for that piece, I was doing a residency there for a month or more, and I was going around to secondhand shops, thrift stores, yard sales, and collecting whatever I could find. Our conversation is below, edited lightly for clarity and length.

Where did your fascination with objects and collecting discarded items originate?

I’ve always been an artist, ever since I was really young.

Blue has this water signifier, and is also associated with mermaids, and Southern Belles, and Virgin Marys. She’s a thoughtful collector who amasses discarded and secondhand items with a keen and incisive eye. I began noticing all of these figurines of women who were all white. The Contemporary Artist as Chiffonier(e), curated by Amy Brandt, Affirmation Arts, New York, NY
Repetitive Nature, Concourse Gallery, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY
Cornucopia: Documenting the Land of Plenty, Monserrat Collage of Art, Beverly, MA
Out of this World, Rockland Arts Center, Nyack, NY

2007
Tuttavia Povero!, Shore Institute of Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ
Oasis, Flushing Town Hall, Flushing, NY

2006
Out of Context: Contemporary Photography in the Landscape, The Fields Sculpture Park Art, Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, NY

2005
This is Not an Archive, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, NY
Flowers/Kwiaty, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY

2004
Tracks, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
On Paper, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY

2003
Compost, Gallery at The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

2002
Artists to Artists, Ace Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)
Color of the Avant Garde, Landmark Gallery, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Reaction, Exit Art, New York, NY

2001
Spitting Image, Art Gallery at Stamford University of Connecticut, Stamford, CT

2000
Fixation: Obsession..., curated by A.

Inselman, Kohler Arts Center Sheboygan, WI
The Likeness of Being, curator Dr. Judith Stein, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY

1999
The Petite Format, Yoshii Gallery, New York, NY
Color, Hudson D. Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Alan Sonfist & Portia Munson, Art Gallery of University of Southern Maine, Gorham, ME

1998
The Ornament of the Masses, Kunstahallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odensec, Denmark (catalogue)
Along the Garden Path, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE, curated by Linda Weintraub, (catalogue)

1997
Fetish, Art Gallery of Windsor, curated by Renee Baert (catalogue), Montreal, Canada
Pink, Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, IL, curated by Lisa Wainwright
American Art Today: The Garden, Museum at Florida International University, Miami, FL (catalogue)
Figuring Women’s Lives, Kingsborough Community College Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

1996
Obsession, Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
Body Language, Florida State University, Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL, curated by Judith Page & Adam Strauss (catalogue)
In This Time and Place, College Art Gallery, SUNY at New Paltz, NY
Women Artists, Douglas College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (catalogue)
ARS 95 Helsinki, Museum of Contemporary Art/Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland (catalogue)

1995
Insight, David Beitzel Gallery, New York, NY
Object Lessons: Feminine Dialogues with the Surreal, Mass College of Art, Boston, MA (catalogue)
Kunstkabinett, curated by Sean Ellwood, Center of Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA
Nothing Overlooked: Women Painting Still Life, Contemporary Realist Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Domestic Disturbance, Delta Axis, curated by Allan Frame & Katherine Herndon, Memphis, TN
New Forms, Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA, curated by Ann Wilson Lloyd

1994
Bad Girls, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (catalogue)
Pink Window, Art in General, New York, NY (catalogue)
Contemporary Still Life, curated by Laura Reuter, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND
Evolutions, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Sololoquies, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA

1993
1920, Exit Art/The First World, New York, NY
Update ’93, White Columns, New York, NY (catalogue)
Songs of Retribution, curated by Nancy Spero, Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY

1992
Women & Surrealism, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, Women’s Caucus for Art, Chicago, IL
Still Life Today, Scott Alan Fine Arts, New York, NY

1990
Brut 90, curated by Bill Arning, White Columns, New York, NY

Select Public Works

2018
OVERRIDE Chicago, Interlude at Hand, a Billboard Project, EXPO Chicago, Chicago, IL

2016
Cosmos, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY

2015
Botanicals Below Bryant Park, MTA Station, Bryant Park, New York, NY

2012
Gardens of Fort Hamilton, MTA Subway Commission, Arts for Transit, Fort Hamilton Parkway Station, Brooklyn, NY

Collections

Museum of Sex, New York, NY

21C International Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, KY

ART in Embassies, U.S.

Department of State, Arlington, VA

Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Lyndhurst, OH

Dimensional Fund Advisors, Austin, TX

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Numerous Private Collections

Select Bibliography

2024
Samatar, Sofia; Zambreno, Kate.