Monique Allain: Art Blitz

Born in São Paulo to French-Mexican parents and a large, tightly-knit family, Monique Allain was trained in biology, earning her degree while studying human genetics and working on chromosome research. She was, by all accounts, on track for a serious career in science. But the work, confined to a lab, focused on definitive answers, never quite aligned with how she saw the world. 

“I always felt a bit removed from my surroundings. I grew up influenced by so many different cultures, learning four different languages and sensibilities… I often felt like a foreigner everywhere.”

“I wasn’t happy watching life pass by from inside a lab,” Monique says. “Science felt restrictive. I was more interested in questioning than in answering.”

That distinction became pivotal. What drew her away from science wasn’t a rejection of it, but a pull toward something less fixed and more intuitive and open-ended. Monique describes, “It was a need for poetry, for connection, for a way of understanding the world that allowed for ambiguity.” In the following years, Monique pursued painting, photography, music, and theater. 

“My artistic training began in São Paulo, studying metal sculpture at the Museu de Arte Moderna, and I then went on to earn a degree in visual arts from the very well respected Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado.”

“In 1986 my then-husband had an opportunity in Paris, and we relocated there with our two small children for a year. I spent the time photographing everything I could and I was so turned on by the culture and everything else Paris has to offer. We went back to São Paulo the following year and I continued to explore various mediums and possibilities. I was constantly creating. In 2008, divorced and with my kids away at school, I went back to Paris, having been awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.”

Monique continues, “I was working with the concept of art and entropy, and I jumped on the opportunity to incorporate in my art the search for my French ‘inherited memories’… I engaged with multiple research groups when I returned back to São Paulo again, and then pursued my Master of Fine Arts at Faculdade Santa Marcelina, where my thesis used video and photography to focus on the concept of identity and connectivity. I was very proud to graduate with high honors.”

Working without a permanent studio led her toward portable forms, small-scale installations, artist books, and mixed media works that could travel. A ‘suitcase phase’, as she describes it, became central to her practice, both practically and conceptually. The act of packing and unpacking, and of carrying work across borders, became part of the work itself.

“After years working and exhibiting internationally - in Brazil, France, Italy, Mexico, Australia, and Argentina - I moved to the United States in 2018, having met my now-husband, Sandy, and wanting to be close to my daughter in Manhattan… settling first in Brooklyn. I joined many different artist groups and collectives, and built my American art network. Then, during the pandemic, my husband and I relocated full-time to North Salem. We love it up here… the serenity and all of the natural inspiration for me,” Monique shares. “This past spring, we sold our North Salem home and moved to Waccabuc, on the lake. Waking up and looking at water every morning is just so special.” The couple’s new home includes two dedicated studios: a wet studio and a dry studio, allowing her to explore new mediums and create without constraint.

Today, Monique is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, photography, video, installation, and performance, often centered on questions of identity, environment, and human connection. Her scientific background remains present… not in subject matter alone, but in approach. Observation, inquiry, and an ongoing interest in how systems, natural and human, function and evolve continue to shape how she works.

Her latest project, ART BLITZ, reflects her interest not just in production, but in structure - an emphasis on immediacy, collaboration, and direct engagement with an audience. “The format is intentionally simple,” Monique shares. “A group of artists gathers in a shared space and installs their work within a compressed timeframe, transforming the environment into a temporary exhibition that unfolds in real time. The emphasis is not only on the finished work, but on the act of bringing it into the space… and what happens once it’s there. The concept draws, in part, from large-scale public gatherings like Paris’s Dîner en Blanc, where coordinated, rapid activation transforms a setting almost instantly. ART BLITZ intentionally operates on an intimate scale, creating space for interaction between artists and viewers that feels immediate and unscripted.”

At a recent installation at the Bedford Playhouse, Allain was joined by a group of regional artists, including Anita Fina Kiewra, Anne Harmon, Bibiana Huang Matheis, Leslie Connito, Paige De Leo, Penny Dell, Sally Frank, and Tanya Kukucka. The exhibition unfolded over the course of a single day. Works arriving and being placed simultaneously, adjusted, and experienced in real time - blurring the line between process  and presentation.

Photos: Helen Houghton

Throughout the summer, ART BLITZ will continue with activations in North Salem. Monique plans to continue with a series of pop-up exhibitions throughout the summer in a barn that she and her husband are currently using as a creative space. Locals are invited to join in on the experience! 

The barn is located at 264 Titicus Road in North Salem, and ART BLITZ will open there coinciding with Upstate Art Weekend Open Studios on Saturday May 16 and Sunday 17 from 11am-6pm. 

ART BLITZ sits within a broader body of work built around collaboration and participation. Allain is also the founder of Art for a Change, a project developed with breast cancer patients at Metropolitan Hospital in New York, where participants’ creations will be permanently installed in the hospital’s infusion center. “I hope that the project will engage people with the breast cancer cause,” Monique posits.

“Across these artistic efforts, my goal is to create a framework that brings people together, and allows the work, and the dialogue around it, to develop from there. It is a simple invitation to step into the process - not just to observe.”