JAVA Nov 19

Merryn Alaka, “Not Your Mixed Baby Fetish”
Miguel Monzón, “Angel” 2019
really well,” she said. “I think we make a good pair at Modified. We kind of had
the same idea for the type of work we wanted to show at the gallery. We wanted
something unique each month or something different. We didn’t want to just have
painting shows or drawing shows. I mean, we do those, but we also wanted the
work to have some conceptual meaning.”
Miguel Monzón was born in San Bernardino, California. His parents came to the
U.S. from Mexico, making him a first-generation American. His family moved to
Las Vegas for a couple of years, then on to Phoenix for good. Monzón grew up in
the Valley and feels much affection for the area. “When people ask me, ‘Where
you from?’ I’m just like, pretty much I’m from Phoenix, man. I grew up here. All my
youth was spent here. I was on the streets skating, you know – Phoenix is home.”
He drew voraciously growing up. He would render people and creatures from
real life as well as his imagination. After high school, Monzón started attending
community college. He knew he had the talent for art but that things wouldn’t
come easy. “It was that whole period of what are you going to do with your life?”
he said. “I was aware that art was not an easy path. It was going to be a lot of
work. You’re going to have to be self-motivated to do this. No one’s going to make
you do anything. I just decided to go with art and follow my passion. I started
trying to learn about art as much as possible. Honestly, I didn’t set foot into a
museum until I was like 18.”
This delayed exposure to the arts would not deter Monzón, it would just make
him even more determined. He started watching documentaries about art, reading
books about artists, and, of course, going to art museums. He came at art with a
fresh outlook. He learned about the tradition of painting and the masters, but he
was attracted to the ideas conveyed by the work.
Merryn Alaka, “America(nah)”
“I realized that I was more interested in the concept or what was behind the work,”
he said. “What is it that made you make this piece? What does it mean? So because of
that, I chose to go into intermedia. Then also, I had learned about these other artists
that were doing work that’s not just something on a wall. I was interested in
learning more about non-traditional art, so that’s when I transferred to ASU.”
Monzón as a maker is not tied to any medium. He works in all kinds of media,
from drawing to printmaking to video. He chooses the medium that will best
express his ideas for each body of work. This leads to the creation of diverse
artworks. He is always experimenting with materials and ideas, relentless in his
pursuit of a higher truth, but always remembering where he came from.
Alaka and Monzón took all the knowledge learned in school and put it into
practice when they started working at Modified Arts. They both had a willingness
to learn and a positive attitude of wanting to contribute to the art scene. Kimber
Lanning took a chance on them, and they’ve been paying dividends since then.
“I was basically assisting Connor Descheemaker (Modified’s former gallery
director),” Monzón said. “Trying to absorb what it’s like to run an art gallery. At the
time, he was working for Local First also. He was just inundated with work, and
then he was doing Modified on the side. Anything I could help with – that was
what I was there for.”
“It’s been great to have the support from Kimber Lanning,” Alaka said. “She leaves
a lot of the things to us, but she’s always been so supportive. She wants us to use
the space however we see fit.”
They put forth their vision of what they want to show at the gallery in a thoughtful
manner. The first show Monzón fully curated was called Within and Without, a
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MAGAZINE