Carolyn Monastra

My interest in photography began as a high school student in Cleveland, Ohio. I continued my studies in the medium at Fordham University in New York City.  After being a social worker for several years I enrolled in the MFA program at Yale University’s School of Art.  My work has been exhibited in many venues in the US as well as internationally in Ireland, Japan, and China.  Awards I’ve received include grants from The Puffin Foundation, the English Speaking Union, the city of New Haven, and a multi-media fellowship from The Rotunda Gallery and BCATV. Residencies at Skaftfell in Iceland  and The Djerassi Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, and the The Millay Colony in the US, have provided me with inspirational environments in which to pursue her work in the landscape. My photographs are in The Margulies Warehouse Collection in Miami, The Johnson & Johnson Corporate Art Collection, and numerous private collections in the US and abroad.

I have been photographing in the landscape for over a decade. My last project, lovely, dark and deep, was a series of landscapes taken at twilight. Whereas those images were primarily meant to evoke an emotional response of what it’s like to be in the landscape at dusk, with The Witness Tree, I am also engaging my audience on a social and environmental level too.  I want people to see and appreciate the beauty of our environment and think about how we need to protect these precious and precarious landscapes from these not-so-natural disasters before they are irrevocably altered.