Leo Monohan is a pioneer of paper sculpture. With a simple set of tools, he creates three dimensional pieces of art.
In this interview you learn how he developed his unique art form, how he discovered his personal combination of symbols and techniques. Monohan shares insights regarding the differences between pretty and deeply personal art..
He talks about finding himself in his art, tossing out the pretty and easy in favor of the deeply satisfying, growing up in the Black Hills after World War II, the difference between skill and passion, the importance of art school, and being a lunch bucket artist. Monohan was the first recipient of the Walt Disney scholarship at Chouinard Art Institute. Since then he has taught at Chouinard, owned a very successful ad agency in Los Angeles and been recognized as having developed a unique and original art form.
Thank You Leo
In Memorial - Lynn's Butterfly - By Leo Monahan
For the beautiful butterfly you created in memory of Lynn Powers. I sent Leo a group of condolence cards received after Lynn's death and he sent back this amazing butterfly.
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Creating sculpture in paper
Ted McIrvine - Arts Spectrum, Hendersonville News · July 24, 2005 South Dakota, Southern California and Southern Appalachia have little in common except for the five letters s-o-u-t-h. But the first two locations figured importantly in the artistic development of Leo Monahan, America's foremost paper sculpture illustrator, and the stimulus provided by our region will shape his future output.
Monahan was born in Lead, S.D. HBO devotees know that Lead (which is pronounced "leed" and means an outcropping of ore) is just a ten-minute gallop from Deadwood. In 1874, General George Custer's expedition arrived and two cultures collided. The new arrivals, with a philosophy of "Manifest Destiny," discovered gold and soon were fighting each other over the titles to gold mining claims. The Sioux felt they too had claims, albeit of a different nature. Their nomadic culture (appropriate in a region with less than 20 inches of annual rainfall) had no concept of land ownership. Cutting into the face of the Black Hills was like cutting into your mother's breast. Monahan's grandfather and father were both miners, and Monahan might have followed in their footsteps had he not served in the Japanese occupation forces during the Korean War. Using his GI Bill, he then studied art at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Walt Disney had taken an interest in the school, and when Monahan received a Disney Scholarship, a long involvement with the Disney enterprises began. The Chouinard Art Institute merged with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music in 1961 to become the California Institute of the Arts ("CalArts") on a splendid campus in Valencia, built with funds from the estate of Walt Disney. Monahan was involved with Chouinard, Disney and/or CalArts for 50 years before moving to North Carolina. He taught color, served as a Disney contractor, and had access to the model shops and the specialized techniques used for set construction for Disney amusement parks. Fresh out of school with a few other designers and photographers, he started a business that created cover art for over 1,200 records. Selling that business, he did freelance illustration for 10 years, then began an advertising agency. He began paper sculpture in 1960. By the late 1970s, paper sculpture had taken over his life. Since 1987, he has done nothing but paper sculpture, both as an illustrator and as a fine artist. Generally using Strathmore 2-ply and 3-ply kid finish papers (and sometimes using watercolor paper or handmade papers), he tears and cuts the paper into three-dimensional sculptures to which he applies color with an arsenal of techniques. His fine art has primarily been topically based upon his childhood in the Black Hills and especially on symbols arising from the Sioux or from nature. Masks, feathers, pottery, boats and birds appear frequently.
