illy, the prestigious Italian coffee brand reaffirms once again its link with contemporary culture and art with its participation for the nineteenth consecutive year in the latest edition of the ARCOmadrid International Contemporary Art Fair. In addition to being the official partner of the café, it has awarded its illy Sustain Art Award to the best emerging artist, endowed with €15,000 for patronage of a work of art.
The winner was the artist Mónica Mays (Madrid in 1990), who currently lives and works between Madrid and Amsterdam. After studying Cultural Anthropology at the University of New Orleans, she graduated Cum Laude in 2015 from the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg and received an MA from the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam in 2017.
Mónica Mays’ practice is situated in a hybrid terrain between sculpture, installation and performance. She investigates the symbology of objects while drawing narratives based on autobiography, historical archive and material knowledge.
The prestigious jury made up of relevant figures from the world of art and culture, such as Patrizia Sandretto Rebaudengo (curator and founder of the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation), Tania Pardo (Director of the CA2M Museum), Ianko López (specialized journalist), and Carlo Bach ( Creative Director of illycaffè), has considered that Mónica Mays’ work stood out for the completeness with which she mixes different elements in a material research process, based on the combination of objects from the industrial world with the natural and organic universe.
The artist continues a line of research founded on the materials and sculptural tradition of the sixties, represented in recognized figures from the art world such as Eva Hesse or even Yayoi Kusama. Her sculptures are formalized as a set of assemblages made up of found objects, specifically elements from abandoned factories, livestock objects and anachronistic furniture, taken as instruments of domestication and control.
The winning project ‘In the palm of their hands’, represented by the Blue Velvet Gallery, investigates the palm plant from its biblical symbology, its paradisiacal and ornamental imagery.
