A Sense of Home in a Foreign Place
Aaron Monu
Exhibition Dates : May 15-June 26, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 15, 2025, 5:30-8:00pm, Artist Talk at 6:30pm RSVP
Artist Statement
Aaron Monu’s work explores the interplay of spirituality, nature, and memory—probing how these forces shape identity within the built environments we inhabit and the intangible spaces we carry within. His multidisciplinary practice, spanning painting, sculpture, and immersive installation, rejects singular definition, mirroring his belief that human connection and self-discovery thrive in the liminal: the space between materials, cultures, and selves.
This exhibit, A Sense of Home in a Foreign Place, emerged from the physical and metaphysical labor of renovating a historic home in the West End of Atlanta. Amid demolition and reconstruction, Monu confronted a revelation: home is not the walls, but the acts of love, resilience, relationships, and rituals that animate them. The exhibit distills the tension between the foreign and the familiar, the anchored and the untethered—through materials that embody both fortitude and impermanence. Oil paintings on wood panels and canvas capture the fleeting warmth of belonging. Sculptural assemblages of reclaimed timber and industrial material speak to the labor of building sanctuary in unwelcoming terrain. Found objects, anointed with new meaning, become testaments to the alchemy of adaptation. Here, foreignness is not erased, but sanctified, and what is unfamiliar becomes a site of revelation.
Monu invites viewers to reflect on their own landscapes of belonging and sense of self in a participatory manner. From this lens, the foreign is not a void but a threshold—a site where discomfort transforms into discovery, and where the self learns to dwell anew. By merging the personal and universal, Monu offers not just an exhibit, but a compass that points toward the light we carry, no matter where we stand.
Bio
Aaron Monu is a multidisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, GA, whose work explores the interplay of spirituality, nature, and memory—probing how these forces shape identity within both built environments and the intangible spaces we carry. Through meditative, abstract compositions in layered oils, he evokes natural elements (skies, forests, water) to invite viewers toward introspection and connection with the unseen. His paintings, rooted in a practice that began with acrylics and evolved into luminous oil glazes, reflect a fascination with humanity’s dual existence: grounded in physicality yet boundless in spirit. Monu’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Atlanta and resides in private collections internationally. His forthcoming solo exhibition, A Sense of Home in a Foreign Place, examines the fluidity of belonging and finding peace beyond physical constructs.
