Mona Caron Urban Artist
Introducing Mona Caron
When you imagine a mural of a flower, you probably picture something simple, predictable and pretty—but think again. Mona Caron stretches simple themes like this into extraordinary, enchanting works of art that make you wide-mouthed with awe, especially when you realize that her giant paintings of flowers are not just your typical subjects, but in fact are giant weeds.
Who knew that weeds could contain so much beauty? Mona Caron did, and moreover she knew that painting a twelve-story-high weed is the perfect way to incapsulate an iconic message about resilience. These simple plants are painted with a glowing, almost God-like light that prompts the viewer to look upon the ordinary world with more reverence and a sense of magic.
“Weeds break through even the hardest cement, the most seemingly invincible constraints, reconnecting earth to sky, like life to its dreams. It’s happening everywhere at the margins of things, we’re just not paying attention.”
Caron brings this same innovative attitude to all of her urban art. She paints “artivist” works to advocate for a certain message as well as narrative murals that embody a unique community or environment.
“These murals typically narrate the local history, chronicle the social life of the mural’s immediate surroundings, and visualize future possibility, and are created in a process that incorporates ideas emerging through spontaneous conversations with the artwork’s hosting communities while painting.”
Her Story
Mona Caron is based in San Francisco. As an artist, she works with murals, graphics, illustration and photography, but public art is her main focus. She has been focused on art in public places since 2000.
Since her start, Caron’s work has been commissioned all over the U.S. as well as in Europe, Asia and Brazil. Her current focus is on her Weeds series, which is thematically consistent yet has been executed in distinctly site-specific ways around the world, from a twelve-story-high mural in Brazil to a mural in Taiwan that is allegedly the largest mural in Asia.
Caron works both indoors and outdoors, and she strives to be incredibly community-focused. With a range of subject matter, she is able to capture something special about each setting’s essence. Her work is suitable for apartment buildings, art studios, and other open wall spaces.