Alyssa Monks is a contemporary American artist. She was born in 1977, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She began her interest in painting as a child. She studied at The New School in New York and Montclair State University and received her BFA from Boston College in 1999. At the same time she studied painting at the Lorenzo de Medici Academy in Florence.

She then went on to study for a master’s degree program at the New York Academy of Art, Department of Figurative Art, graduating in 2001. She graduated from Fullerton College in 2006. She has lectured for some time at universities and educational institutions across the country, and has taught painting at the New York Academy of Art as well as Montclair State University and Lyme Academy of Art College.

“Using filters such as glass, vinyl, water and steam, I distort the human body. These filters allow me to create large areas of abstract design, with islands of color – parts of the human body – peeking through them.

My paintings change the modern view of already established, traditional poses and gestures of bathing women. They could tell the attentive viewer a great deal about such seemingly self-evident things as the benefits of swimming, dancing, and so on. My characters press against the glass of the shower stall window, contorting their own bodies, aware that by doing so they affect the notorious male view of the naked woman. Thick layers of paint are blended to mimic glass, steam, water, and flesh from afar. Up close, however, the admirable physical properties of oil paint become apparent. Experimenting with layers of paint and color, I find the moment when abstract strokes become something else.

When I first started painting the human body, I was immediately fascinated and even became obsessed with it and felt I had to make my paintings as realistic as possible. I “professed” realism until it began to unravel and uncover contradictions in itself. Now I am exploring the possibilities and potential of a style of writing where representational painting and abstraction meet – if both styles can coexist in the same moment in time, I will do so.”

Alyssa Monks was born in 1977 in New Jersey, USA. Growing up in a large family (the artist has six brothers and a sister). She attended lectures at the New School (New School, “New School for Social Research”, University in New York) and at Montclair State University (Montclair State University). She received her BA from Boston College in 1999. She studied painting at the Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence. In 2001 she received her MFA from the Graduate School of Visual Arts at the New York Academy of Art. In 2006, she lectured on the theory of painting at several universities in the United States. Alyssa Monks is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in painting. She serves on the board of trustees of the New York Academy of Art.

Alyssa Monks works on the edge of realism and abstractionism. She paints her paintings in oils. Her work is often referred to as hyper-realism, while noting that Monks’ paintings cannot be called an example of photorealism, as the artist does not use photographic technique.

In 2015 she was invited to TED, where she gave a lecture entitled “How loss helped one artist find beauty in imperfection”.

She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.