Monica Lacey

Dates: March 27th - May 1st

My creative process involves writing, exploring materials, and spending time with forests and waterways. I make work that helps me attend to beauty and reverence for the living world, and value processes in which my heart and hands can dialogue with my materials and the elements around me.

This project began in January 2025, when my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Doing this work has helped me navigate the shifting tides of emotion that are reshaping my internal landscape.The title evokes measuring the sea, here reflecting the mapping of unseen depths that shape how we move through loss. Paper and ink, materials I have been drawn to since childhood, offer me both comfort and inquiry. I combined them with my ongoing collaboration with water, working alongside tidepools, rivers, rain, and melting snow, and allowing flow, weather, and time to guide the work.

In some pieces, I mixed snow with ink, letting the snow melt to move freely, creating a painting. In others, I placed paper in tidepools or in the rain, inviting water and wind to move the ink in unpredictable ways. Sculptural forms arose from the catharsis of crumpling paper, even biting or chewing it, in moments of grief. Monoprints created with ink and water, shaped by those crumpled forms, map an evolving inner terrain that reaches outward into the world. Together, these works chart the topography of the shifting ground we stand on in times of great change and loss.

Monica Lacey is a Canadian/Italian multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, curator, educator, and community-builder driven by curiosity, service, and the pursuit of beauty. Connection and communication are central to both her life and work. She holds a Diploma in Textiles and Photography from the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design and has received multiple awards and grants for excellence in her work and service to her community, including the Garfield Weston Award and the Nel Oudemans Award.

Alongside her studio practice, she is a parent, Kundalini Yoga teacher, film industry professional, Peer Support Worker with Creative PEI, and director/curator of the Fitzroy St. Tiny Art Gallery—a miniature art space on her front lawn. She lives on unceded Mi’kmaq territory in Epekwitk/PEI and enjoys outdoor roller skating, practicing Gong Fu, and ocean swimming.