Monica DeSalvo
Visual Duets
Monica DeSalvo’s work transforms the experience of navigating dual realities into layered abstract compositions that explore fragmentation, dichotomy of power, and connection. Rooted in her shared journey through her late father’s dementia, the works hold the tension between presence and absence, clarity and dissolution.
Drawing from her design background and her father’s engineering archives, monotype remnants, and heaps of collage imagery, DeSalvo creates deeply personal yet universally resonant works that bridge intimate narrative and formal abstraction.
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Selected Works
Each work is a unique mixed media collage incorporating monotype prints on archival paper. Click individual works for details or purchase.
Available works typically range from $500–$1,650.
About the Work
DeSalvo works in mixed media and collage, incorporating photography, monotype prints created with a Gelli plate—often on her father’s paper memorabilia and documents tied to his education and career. These materials become both surface and subject, embedding memory directly into the work.
Her compositions are often segmented or constructed as diptychs, reflecting dual perspectives: caregiver and loved one, past and present, seen and unseen. Through layering, she reveals and obscures elements, allowing multiple visual narratives to emerge simultaneously.
Each piece is a one-of-a-kind work, built through an iterative process that results in what she describes as “visual duets.”
Biography
Monica DeSalvo is a Boston-based mixed-media artist and designer. She received her BFA in Visual Design from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and developed an interdisciplinary practice rooted in collage, printmaking, and archival material.
Her work has been curated into juried and invitational exhibitions and featured in publications including Artscope, Curatory, Juniper Rag, and Subpart magazines. DeSalvo has been interviewed by Curatory Magazine and the Dementia Spring Foundation’s Artist Spotlight, bringing broader attention to her interdisciplinary practice and explorations of memory and caregiving. Her work is held in private collections throughout the United States.
In 2024, she participated in the Kolaj Institute residency in Sanquhar, Scotland. Her 2023 solo exhibition, A Bus Tour in the Woods: Visual Duets with Her Father, was presented at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts.
Inquiries
For works not currently listed online or additional information, please contact the gallery.