Monica DeSalvo
Visual Duets
Monica DeSalvo’s work transforms the lived experience of dementia into layered abstract compositions that explore memory, fragmentation, and connection. Rooted in her shared journey with her late father, these works hold the tension between presence and absence, clarity and dissolution.
Drawing from her father’s engineering archives, DeSalvo creates deeply personal yet universally resonant pieces 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 monotype prints created with a Gelli plate on her father’s paper memorabilia—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 patient, 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 with a BFA in Visual Design from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her work has been featured in juried and invitational exhibitions and publications such as Suboart, Juniper Rag, and Artscope magazines. In 2024, she participated in her first artist residency at the Kolaj Institute in Sanquhar, Scotland. Her 2023 solo show, A Bus Tour in the Woods: Visual Duets with Her Father, was held at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts, and she was interviewed for the Dementia Spring Foundation’s Artist Spotlight. Monica lives and works in Arlington, MA.
Inquiries
For works not currently listed online or additional information, please contact the gallery.