BRATTLEBORO — The Harmony Collective invites the public to their September installment of Artist of the Month, Monty Zwickerhill's "False Idols."
Zwickerhill refers to herself as a "Visual Art Alchemist" based in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. The arts have always touched Zwickerhill's life, according to a news release, from painting with watercolor as a toddler, being an active member of a theater company for 15 years, writing for her high school literary and poetry magazines, and a continuous obsession with drawing in her sketchbook or in the margins of any given paper.
"False Idols" is a culmination of work investigating the legacy of childhood trauma relating to domestic violence and predation and the false idols worshiped in its wake. Zwickerhill initially began the process with writing poetry and short stories, featured in the show via a small zine titled "Daddy, You Bastard, I'm Through."
Zwickerhill says she went on to excavating from journals to create collages, examining her interior world throughout the years. The collage pieces became the background for which the False Idols began to appear, the embodiments of what becomes holy in abusive environments: lies, guilt, shame, and so on. She explored the False Idols through assemblage, sculpture, cardboard and canvas.
She invites the public to "enter a temple in observance of those False Idols that the legacy of abuse left behind."
The opening reception will be at the Harmony Collective at 49 Elliot St. from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1, during Brattleboro's Gallery Walk. The show will be up through the month of September.
This The Arts item was submitted to The Commons.