Elizabeth Monks Hack considers herself an “art person.” From crayons to paintbrushes, she feels most at home when she’s expressing herself on canvas—so much so that she doesn’t remember ever becoming an artist. She’s always been one.
“I just remember doing very big crayon drawings and scraping the crayon off and creating different textures with the crayons,” she said.
Like many artists, Hack isn’t just visual; she’s tactile, finding enjoyment in the look, as well as the feel of her art. She also has other, very artsy traits.
“As a kid, I had an active imagination. I remember my parents had a couple of coffee table books I was always into. And, of course, I had a natural ability to draw,” she said.
Hack moved on from crayons and sketches to mimicking Impressionists when she was in middle school. Eventually, she found her own style.
She considers herself to be largely influenced by artists she has admired, like Minimalists Al Held, Robert Mangold, and Wayne Thiebaud. She finds particular inspiration in abstractions. She’s also a fan of Cubism and Early Modernism, such as the work of Charles Demuth.
These influences—along with some experimentation—have melded into a style that Hack now calls her own.
Her artistic breakthrough came, however, when she was a passenger on a road trip and tried drawing. She was traveling to San Diego from Lompoc, hoping to catch what she saw outside the car window. She found herself challenged by trying to control the line while the car bumped and shook. A new inspiration was born.
“That was a very interesting breakthrough in my technique,” she said.
Her style draws on techniques she was thinking about when she was young, specifically how she likes to layer and sort items. She applies these techniques to the pictures she creates of the city around her.
“I’m drawn to urban landscapes, streetscapes,” she said. “Things that man has left his mark on.”
One such painting, Edge of Town, features one of her favorite Lompoc landmarks, the Star Motel on Ocean Avenue. The motel shows up in several of her paintings; she particularly likes it because of its look, a sort of throwback to a by-gone era. Hack explained that the sign, specifically, looks authentic—real, even—compared to much of the mass-produced signage around most cities.
“When [signs] get a little rusty, there’s a poetic resonance,” she said. “Part of it is nostalgia, part of it is it’s a place of impermanence. Also, the name ‘star’ makes me think of what it means to be a star. And it’s just the simplicity of it.”
The Star Motel, like much of what inspires her, is something that comes without a definition.
“There’s poetic meaning,” she said. “You can’t name the feeling it gives you.”
Edge of Town and Hack’s other works will be on display at the Cypress Gallery through August.
Though she likes to paint local scenes, she’s decided to branch out, thanks mainly to another one of her breakthroughs, one that happened when she was in Japan.
“There were signs that were three-stories high, and electric, and loud, and just insane,” she said. “I was standing on this bridge with all those signs, and there was this beautiful sky. I thought that would make a beautiful painting.”
But while Hack works on recreating the vistas from Osaka’s DoTonbori Bridge, she’s quite content capturing the beauty that exists all around her on the Central Coast.
INFOBOX: On the street
Abstract Thought, a show of oil paintings by Elizabeth Monks Hack, will show from July 30 through Aug. 31 at Cypress Gallery, 119 E. Cypress Ave., Lompoc. A reception with the artist will run from 1 to 3 p.m. on Aug. 2. For more information, call 737-1129.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone see signs, signs, everywhere signs. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 17-24, 2008.